Reversal of Fate
by Tonight's The Night
Summary: What if Syaoran had lost his memories instead of Sakura? How would their journey change if she was the one trying to find his feathers? AU.
1. Wings

Chapter One

The two of them tumbled to the living room floor like a pair of acrobats. Sakura giggled. "You're easy to sneak up on, Syaoran," she said, rolling over and letting him sit up.

His coffee-colored eyes flicked up to her, his look of surprise softening until a smile warmed his face. "Sakura-hime, I didn't think you knew I was back."

Her features twisted with false indignation. "I told you to call me Sakura. _Just_ Sakura. And how could I not know you were back?"

His expression shifted again, wary for a moment as he tried to decide whether the fury on her face was genuine or not. When she stubbornly held her pose, he panicked. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . . I mean, I just got back, so . . ."

She moved a hand to her lips to suppress her laughter. "Syaoran, I always know when you come back. The excavation team has to cross right through the bazaar on their way back from the ruins. You're always with them. And besides . . ." Her smile faded as her cheeks turned red. "There was something important I needed to tell you."

"Hime-sama?"

"Sa-ku-ra," she reminded him sternly. _Maybe he'll call me by name after today, _she thought, opening her mouth to say the words. _Maybe the most important words I'll ever say. _"Syaoran, I . . . There's something I've been wanting to tell you for a while now."

His face turned quizzical as he took in her expression. _He doesn't know,_ she thought._ He doesn't understand. _It had taken her weeks to get him to smile after they'd first met, so she knew she shouldn't have assumed he'd understand the reason for her blush, the meaning behind her hesitation. But part of her wanted him to say it first, before she choked on the words.

"Sakura? Are you all right?"

_My name. Yes, he's finally calling me by name. _"I wanted to say . . . I lo—" The sound of bells exploded through the tiny house, slamming against her eardrums. Her head whipped around toward the open window, her lips twisting into a snarl as she identified the cause of the disturbance. _Touya, you jerk!_

Syaoran stared at her, waiting breathlessly for her proclamation, not even knowing what she'd been about to say. For a moment, she considered ignoring the order to return; the bells might have been the signal for her to go back to the castle, but another minute here probably wouldn't alarm anyone. _But it could be a disaster, _she thought. _Maybe we're under attack, and Touya needs me back at the castle. _"I have to go."

Some of the fervor left his eyes, and he leaned back, realizing how close they'd come during their brief conversation. "I'll see you soon, then," he said, his voice carrying just the barest echo of the gloom she felt. She gathered up her white and pink cloak, remembering how Yukito-san had given it to her two years ago, to keep the desert sandstorms from wreaking havoc on her skin. At the door, she hesitated. "That thing I wanted to tell you . . . I'll tell you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

She hurried out the door, not allowing herself any more time to hesitate. _Big brother will already be mad enough as it is. _

Annoyance flickered through her as she passed through the Clow Bazaar. From the smiles of her people, and the offerings of gifts from each of the stalls, she knew the castle hadn't been attacked. _Touya called me back for nothing, _she thought, trying to smile graciously as a man handed her a fresh basket of apples. With the basket in hand, she waved off the other offered gifts on the pretext that she wouldn't be able to carry them.

Clow Castle wasn't heavily guarded, like some. Surrounded by desert on all sides, Clow Country was impractical to go to war with, and not much of a threat to other nations. It had been centuries since they'd been involved in anything larger than a territorial dispute. She walked through the castle gates with little fanfare, then hurried up to the upper level, where she was to report whenever the bells rang for her.

"Found you, Sakura."

She whirled around. "Big brother, why did you call me back?"

The dark-haired man grinned wickedly. "You were hanging out with that brat again, weren't you?"

"His name is Syaoran, and he's not a brat."

"Is too. A little brat who digs around in his sandbox all day, pretending to be an archeologist."

She scowled, opening her mouth to retort. Yukito-san intervened before she could, his arms full of scrolls. "Princess Sakura," he greeted her before turning to Touya. "Your Majesty, you have business to attend to. The gala next month."

Touya looked up, groaning. "Does it have to be right now?"

Yukito smiled. "You're the king. You have duties."

Her brother sighed and turned back to her. "Stay inside the palace. The archeologists brought back reports of sandstorms around the ruins. The winds could hit us any time now."

"It's just sand," she argued.

"You're staying inside until it blows over. Let your little twerp of a friend run around in the sandstorm if he wants. You're the princess, and you're staying here."

"The king is right," Yukito-san said. "The reports say the storms are getting quite vicious. We're sending an edict out to all citizens to stay inside until the weather clears."

Her head drooped down. _If Yukito-san's not taking my side, it must be pretty serious. _She turned and headed toward her room, dejected. _I'll tell Syaoran I love him first thing tomorrow morning, _she thought to herself. _Before Touya wakes up. _

The curtain over her door parted for her as she slipped inside. Within the clay walls of her room sat a soft bed with pink, silk sheets. Books, toys, and other materials sat on shelves, to keep her entertained while Syaoran was away. She put on a pair of pajamas and slipped under the covers, too depressed to do much besides close her eyes and sleep. Within minutes, dreams took her to some faraway place where she could be with Syaoran without her brother interrupting.

In her dream, Syaoran was braiding her hair, manipulating the fine, sunset-colored strands with nimble fingers. Though her hair was cut short to keep the sand from sticking to it, his delicate touch allowed him to catch the wisps and twine them together so they fell down the sides of her face like waterfalls.

She often had dreams like these, dreams where he wasn't afraid to touch her, where he would play with her hair or touch her face. Once, she'd dreamed that he'd kissed her, as if he'd done it every day for years.

"I love you," dream-Syaoran said, twisting a lock of hair with two others to start another braid. Sakura felt her lips curl up into a smile.

"I love you, too, Syaoran," she said. _If only I could say that so easily, _some distant part of her thought. The thought quickly vanished from the dream.

"But I have to go soon," Syaoran went on, his features darkening a little bit as he said it.

Sakura cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Why? Where are you going?"

"Away. I won't be able to stay with you anymore."

_No, this isn't right, _she thought, her conscious mind surfacing briefly before the ocean of dreams took her under again.

"The feathers are going to scatter, all over."

"What does that mean?" she asked, leaning toward him in desperation.

"When the sandstorms come, the feathers will scatter, and I'll have to move on from this world."

"No. Stay, please."

"I can't. I'll be . . . gone." He looked up at the sky. The stars reflected in his striking eyes, and for a moment, his gaze looked more ancient than the wing-shaped ruins of Clow. "I'll be gone, somewhere you can't follow."

"No. No, Syaoran, you have to stay, I need to . . . I need to . . ." She struggled for the words, struggled to say them as easily as she had a few moments ago. It was vitally important for him to hear. He _had _to hear, otherwise . . .

_Something bad will happen, _she knew.

She woke abruptly to see stars glittering beyond her windows. She sat up, disoriented, and got to her feet. _Something bad . . . _she thought, stripping off her pajamas and hastily putting on a fresh outfit. She was almost out the door before she remembered to pick up her white and pink sand-cloak. _I'll need this in case the storms get bad, _she thought, stretching the fabric over her shoulders.

Feeling more agitated by the second, she hurried down the corridor leading to the grand staircase. _Where are all the people? _she wondered. _The castle guards should be at their stations, no matter how late it is. Where have they gone? _

She reached the stairs then, and froze where she stood. At the bottom of the steps, lying in a lake of crimson, were the missing guards. Rips in their clothes revealed the nature of their death. _There's an assassin in the castle, _she thought, almost turning back toward Touya's room to warn him, then stopping. _No, if the guards are dead, the assassins would've reached Touya's room a long time ago. I might be the only one left. I have to get out of here. _She raced down the steps, wincing at the loud footfalls of her shoes against the hardened clay. When she reached the pool of blood at the bottom, she edged around it, averting her eyes. _I have to find Syaoran. He'll protect me, even if the guards can't._

_Unless he's the one in danger,_ she thought, the surreal certainty of her dreams leaking into her conscious mind.She moved faster, bursting through the massive exterior doors. The city was silent, empty, as if everyone had died peacefully in their sleep. When she saw no imminent threat, she ran down the castle steps and into the bazaar, taking the quickest path to Syaoran's house. _Please, let him be there._

Her ears focused in on the sound of shifting sand, and she looked over to see swirls of the grainy substance whipping all around the cluster of houses where Syaoran lived. Her heart pounded. _"When the sandstorms come, the feathers will scatter . . ." _he'd said.

"What does that _mean_?" she wondered aloud. Several steps later, she pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, to keep the sand out of her eyes. The wisps of sand she'd seen a moment ago had whipped up into an impressive storm, more like a tornado than a whirlwind. She kept low to the ground, exposing as little surface area to the shifting winds as possible. The storm still slowed her down, though, and by the time she burst through the doors of Syaoran's house, he was gone. "Syaoran! Syaoran, where are you?" A fit of coughing shook her frame as her lungs attempted to expel the sand she'd inhaled. More shifting particles poured through the open window. _Why did he leave the window open? _she wondered, squinting.

_Because that's how he left. _There were times when she just _knew _things, knew them without having any solid evidence in favor of that conclusion. And as with her dream, this was one of those times.

Sakura crossed the living room and hoisted her leg over the windowsill to propel herself out. The storm was even worse than it had been when she'd entered the house. _I've never seen a sandstorm escalate so fast,_ she thought as she slogged through the sea of sand. Beyond the shifting particles, she saw a figure, a few inches taller than her and wearing a simple cloak. "Syaoran! Syaoran, you have to get back inside!"

If he heard her, he didn't turn. He just kept moving as if the storm didn't affect him at all. She hurried after, dread coiling up in her stomach like a diamond-headed viper.

She followed him all the way to the ruins, where the storm was at its strongest. Sand clogged her throat, forcing her into coughing fits every few steps. After a while, she had to stop calling his name, for fear she'd choke on the moistened particles. It was a relief to descend into the comparative sanctuary of the ruins. _Syaoran said it wasn't safe to come down here, _she thought. _But I have nowhere else to go now. The storm's only getting worse. _She spat a wad of sand onto the floor and continued down the halls. "Syaoran, stop!"

He glanced back, but the look on his face chilled her to the bone. Desert nights could get quite cold, especially compared to the sweltering heat of midday, but she'd never _felt _this cold until she saw the blank gaze he favored her with. _Dead. It's like he's dead. _"Syaoran, stop right _now_. That's an order!" Using her commanding voice was something she seldom had to do, but it almost always had the effect she wanted.

This time, it didn't. He descended down a narrow flight of stairs, looking away from her. The dread she'd felt a few minutes ago doubled in intensity as she ran after him.

After dozens of steps, they reached the bottom level of the ruins. Walking into the massive chamber was disorienting after the claustrophobic stairwell. The room stretched out farther than the palace dining hall, but lacked the windows and wall ornaments to break up the monotony of the walls. The only feature in the empty room was a pair of stone wings embedded in the floor. Syaoran walked toward the center of the wings, kneeling down with one hand touching the floor. Almost at once, the pale stone started to glow with brilliant white light.

"_When the sandstorms come, the feathers will scatter, and I'll have to move on to the next world." _The words echoed in her ears, and suddenly the whole situation was too much, too _real _for her to deal with. As the blinding light flooded the room, she watched a pair of dark brown wings unfurl from Syaoran's back, like chocolate ribbons. They stretched out, until they were almost the size of the marking on the floor, then flapped once, lifting him high up, where she had no chance to reach him. Too late, she sprinted across the room, extending one arm to pull him down. "Syaoran!"

His face didn't change. As he floated up to the top of the room, his expression looked like that of a doll, blank and unmoving. Sakura watched his body curl up, wings folding around him. She watched him in those final moments before her world changed forever.

Syaoran spread his wings one final time, the movement almost reckless. The brown ribbons split apart, cracking like a piece of pottery dropped onto the floor. Hundreds of feathers exploded out from those wings, moving away from his body almost too fast for her eyes to track.

And then he fell.


	2. Distortions

Chapter Two

Syaoran's body landed with a thud on the stone floor. The sound alone was enough to jar Sakura out of her panic-induced paralysis; she ran up to him.

His face was paler than she'd ever seen it, as if all the blood had leaked away from his skin. When she lifted a shaking hand to his neck to feel for a pulse, his skin felt icy cold. "Syaoran . . ." she whimpered, as if she'd been the one who'd been ripped to shreds. Twin trails of saltwater ran down her cheeks, the clear droplets splashing onto his slackened features.

But he was alive. His pulse was faint, irregular, but it was there, and that was all that mattered. Knowing she couldn't move him on her own, she got up and ran up the narrow stairwell leading up to the ground level.

The storm had abated since she'd entered the ruins, but the sudden stillness unnerved her. The desert around her was silent, devoid of life.

Her first instinct was to run back to the palace. _I can't go back, _she realized as she took her first step._ Whoever killed the guards could be looking for me right now. _The initial shock of seeing the bodies had kept her from reacting in a panic, but now fear seized up all her muscles, leaving her frozen where she stood. _They could all be dead by now. My brother, Yukito-san, all the servants. I might be the only survivor. I can't go back. _A shudder ran down her back.

She revised her strategy, running to the nearest houses for help. "Excuse me!" she called, praying someone would wake up at her cry. "The palace has been attacked. I need help."

Torches flickered to life within the house, and the curtain hanging over the door spread wide to let her in. She skittered inside, like a mouse fleeing into the wall. "Thank you," she said, turning. When she saw the black mask of her savior, she froze. "Who are you?"

The masked man said nothing, just reached out and snatched her arm. With a quick movement, he jerked her forward and spun her around. A thin metal edge pressed against her throat, drawing blood. Her eyes flashed open wide, arms struggling against the tight hold of her attacker.

She did the only thing she could think to do in that moment: she screamed.

The knife dug deeper into her flesh, causing real pain now. Horror swept through her as she realized she was about to die. _I won't be able to save Syaoran, _she thought helplessly, staring at the blank wall in front of her. As she waited for the knife to bury itself in her carotid artery, she saw the clay wall warp and shift in front of her. Within the distortion, a bluish-gray line formed, splitting the air as it parted. Several men, all wearing the same faceless masks and dark clothes of the one holding the dagger to her throat, came through the distortion, as if it was a door from another world.

_What is going _on _here? _she wondered. Though she hadn't seen everything the world had to offer, nothing in her experience could possibly explain what had just happened. _Maybe Yukito-san would know, _she thought irrelevantly. _Not that I'll get a chance to ask. _

The men stormed out of the rift in a seemingly endless chain. None of them so much as looked at her as they passed. _No one's coming to help, _she realized, feeling cold. Some part of her tried to argue, tried to reassure her that Touya, or Yukito, or _someone_ from the castle would come to her aid, would've heard her scream. But she knew that wasn't true.

She changed tactics, addressing her captor. "What do you want from me?"

No answer.

"If it's gold, or any sort of riches . . . you can have it." Clow wasn't a rich country, but they had some valuables. Perhaps her attackers would be more motivated by greed than by the fear of getting caught.

Still no answer.

"Isn't that it? What else could you want?" Possible answers flitted through her mind: the throne, the land, her life. _If they wanted to kill me, wouldn't they have done it already? _"Just tell me. Whatever you want, you can have it."

The masked man kept silent. _Is he mute? _she wondered. Given that all the soldiers had their faces concealed, she could only guess at the measures their employer would go to in order to keep their identity anonymous. _I'm not going to get an answer, either way. I need to think of something else. Yukito-san's been trying to teach me magic, maybe I can Call him. _She focused her magic, just like Yukito had taught her, and sent it out like an arrow through the night. _Help, help, there's been an attack! _she yelled, praying someone was still alive to hear her. _It would be Yukito, if no one else. Whoever these people are, they wouldn't see him as a threat, not compared to the armed guards. _She flinched at the thought. Her guards had been the most competent in Clow, able to fend off many lesser warriors in the event of an attack. _Our enemy must be very powerful, to slay them so easily._

But as she considered what had happened, she realized just how easy it could've been. If these people could appear from distortions in the air, surely they could stick a sword in someone's back before they had a chance to react.

Fear twisted in her gut like a knife. _They could be killing Syaoran right now. They could be in the ruins, they could take him. Whatever happened back there with those feathers left him vulnerable. I never should have left. _

Her distress must've been apparent to her captor, because the arm around her waist tightened until she struggled to breathe. _I have to keep Calling, _she told herself, summoning the image of Yukito-san's face to her mind. _I'm near the edge of town. I need help, and so does Syaoran. Please!_

She thought she heard the faintest whisper of a response, but she couldn't be sure. She tilted her head up to look at the featureless mask of her captor. "Why are you doing this?"

The man—if he even _was _a man—gave no reply except to adjust his hold slightly. Tears ran down her face. _What have I gotten myself into? _she wondered hopelessly, while the rest of her kept Calling. _Yukito-san! Touya! Somebody, I need help!_

This time, the response was clear enough to be accurately labeled as an answer. She closed her eyes in prayer. _Please get here soon, someone. _

The gods granted her wish, because at that moment, the curtain over the door came free with a ripping sound, and her brother's voice exploded through the air. "Get your hands off my _sister_!"

Her captor repositioned his arms so he had one hand free, the other still coiled about her abdomen. Before he could use his knife on Touya, he lost his hand. Sakura recoiled as the droplets of blood splashed against her face, and managed to wriggle free of her captor's hold.

She watched her brother finish the job with one decisive sweep of his sword, and winced.

Yukito-san plowed through the now-uncovered doorway, walking backwards as he fended off another masked man with his magic staff. He knocked the man unconscious with a blow to the temple, then spared a glance for her.

"Yukito-san, Syaoran's been hurt in the ruins," she told him, almost in tears again.

Alarm crossed his features. Unlike her brother, Yukito was fond of Syaoran. He visited the castle often enough that Yukito had started treating him like a family member instead of a guest. "Is he still at the ruins?"

"Yes. Something happened. He sprouted wings and then they broke apart and the feathers flew away." She made expressive gestures to accompany the explanation, but that didn't seem to clear the confusion on Yukito-san's face. "You have to see him right away."

The bespectacled priest turned to Touya. "Do I have your leave, Your Majesty?"

Her brother rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I guess. You better take care of my sister while you're out there."

Sakura was already at the door. "C'mon, let's go!"

They hurried across the sands. Now that the sandstorms had abated, traversing the open desert was a relatively quick process. She saw a few masked men running to and from the ruins, but didn't hesitate as they ran toward the wing-shaped structure. There was no time to go back and get Touya, and he'd probably rejoin them as soon as he was able. Yukito's skill with a staff would have to be enough to get them through this.

The masked men didn't attack them as they ran into the mountains. They had either misidentified her, or whatever task they were doing here was no longer at risk by her intervention. "This way," she said, pulling the High Priest down the narrow stairwell leading to the lowest level of the ruins.

Syaoran's body still lay there, pale and unmoving. She staggered over to him, her throat tightening as the gravity of his condition hit her anew. "Can you do anything for him?" she asked as Yukito knelt down beside him. The priest pressed two fingers to Syaoran's forehead, then flinched in surprise.

"I don't believe it," he whispered.

"What?"

"His memories are gone. All the pieces of his soul . . . It's astonishing."

"But is there anything you can _do_?"

"Nothing in my power is strong enough to save him."

Despair jolted through her, splitting her heart as if it was made of tissue paper instead of muscle. Yukito looked at her with great intensity and rested two hands on her shoulders.

"Do you truly wish to save him? More than you wish to stay here?"

"_Yes. _Of course I do!"

"Touya would never approve of this." Resolve formed in the blond's eyes, and he lifted his hands from her shoulders to get a good grip on his staff. "Stand up, Sakura-chan."

She stood, struggling to fend off the dizzying panic as she moved. Curls of light wound around Yukito's staff, magic in its purest form, and wrapped around her and Syaoran. "I am sending you to the Space-Time Witch," he told her, as the world wavered around her. "She commands much greater power than I do. If there is any way to save him, she will know."

Sakura nodded. "I understand."

The shimmering lights moved like viscous liquid around her, warping the air just like it had been right before the masked men had come storming into this world. She caught one last glimpse of Yukito's determined face before her body was pulled away to another world.


	3. Prices

Chapter Three

Her knees hit the ground with a jarring impact. A hiss of pain slipped through her teeth, but the real panic didn't set in until she heard the loud _thump _of a body landing beside her. Sakura turned, one hand flying up to her mouth in surprise. "Syaoran!" she cried, reaching over to the unconscious boy.

"He won't wake."

Her head whipped around as she searched for the source of the voice. After a moment, a tall, slender woman with dark hair walked out from behind a wooden archway. Sakura blinked, surprised at the woman's features. Her cheeks were curved in a way Sakura had never seen, and her eyelids were half-closed, as if she was exhausted or drunk. Her hair was the color of charcoal, a color seldom seen in Clow due to the heat-absorbing qualities of dark colors. Of even greater surprise was the astonishingly pale tint to her skin—as if she had never stepped foot in the sunlight.

The woman's appearance wasn't the most shocking thing about this place, though it had been the first thing Sakura had noticed. Of even greater surprise was the heavy droplets of rain coming down all around her, the striking green color of the plants, some potted, some growing naturally in the dirt. She'd heard of places where the rains came every week or two, but she had never been to one, and to be standing under a downpour like this with all these strange plants scattered around her was almost as jarring as the transition between dimensions. "Where is this?" she asked, trying to remember if Yukito-san had told her anything about this place.

"This is Japan," the woman said. "Why have you come here?"

She remembered the limp boy lying next to her and cursed herself for getting so absorbed in the scenery. "My friend . . . Something happened to him. He s-sprouted wings, and then the feathers scattered everywhere." She bit her lip, realizing how insane she must've sounded.

The pale woman—what had Yukito called her? The Space-Time Witch?—examined her critically, then nodded once. "I see. It seems you have a wish to make."

"Yes. I want to restore him to the person he was before this happened."

"Your wish will have a price. A steep price."

"Whatever it takes. Please. I just want him back to normal."

The witch nodded, then focused on something behind her. Almost too quiet to hear, the witch said, "Here they come."

Sakura cocked her head to the side. "Who?"

The witch jerked her chin toward the space behind her. She turned, looking back to see what the woman had indicated, then saw the globules of viscous liquid floating in the air. The fluid expanded, like a balloon being inflated, and more appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. As she observed the strange liquid pouring into this world, she realized how similar it looked to the distortions she'd seen when the masked men had attacked Clow. _Have I been dropped into an even more dangerous world? _she wondered, eyes darting over to Syaoran. She moved her arms over him, as if doing so would protect him.

Two figures emerged from the dark substance, almost as dissimilar to each other as the pale woman was to the people in Clow. The first man looked unnaturally tall and slender, with effeminate features, golden hair, and striking blue eyes. The other was copper-skinned, with black hair and red eyes. From the expressions on their faces, she guessed their temperaments were just as different. The dark-haired man looked annoyed, almost angry, while the blond smiled as if he'd just heard an amusing tale. Sakura looked back to Syaoran, pulling him closer.

"Where the hell am I?" the dark-haired man barked.

At the same time, the other man turned to the pale woman and said, "Are you the Dimensional Witch?"

The Space-Time Witch addressed the blond first, then the red-eyed man. "I've been called that. You can call me Yuuko, if you want. And you've landed in Japan."

"Hey, that's what my world is called, too," said the scary one.

The woman smiled mischievously. "Yes. There are many different worlds, but some have the same names. Now, what have you two come for?"

The two answered at the same time again, with contradicting wishes.

"I want to go back to my home world."

"I want to go anywhere besides my home world."

The two exchanged glances, almost as if they hadn't noticed each other's presence until that very moment. Before either of them said anything more, Yuuko spoke again. "You each have different wishes. You wish to travel to many different worlds to find the feathers holding that boy's soul," she said, indicating Sakura. "You want to go to as many worlds as you can so you don't have to return to your own world," she said, indicating the blond. "And you want to return to your own world," she said, indicating the dark-haired man. "The wishes are different, but the method is the same."

_Travel to many different worlds? _Sakura thought, dazed. _Collecting the feathers? That'll make Syaoran better? _She looked doubtfully at the boy. If his face weren't so pale, he would've looked to be asleep. As it was, his skin was ice cold, and his pallid complexion appeared almost ghostly. _Though I've seen ghosts, and they aren't all that pale. _She frowned.

Yuuko-san called to someone nearby, telling them to bring her something. _Or someone. _A moment later, a gangly, dark-haired boy came running out of the building with two long-eared creatures, a white one and a black one, in his arms. He handed them to Yuuko without a word.

"This is Mokona," she said, holding out the white creature. Sakura tried to figure out what kind of animal it was. It had floppy ears, like a rabbit, but sat upright, eyes pinched shut, a small red gem attached to its forehead. _Will there be other animals like this in the other worlds? _she thought, suddenly uneasy with the idea of traveling. If such small creatures were going to unnerve her so, she couldn't imagine what it would be like to face a hostile predator. _No, don't think about that. You're doing this for Syaoran. _

The witch went on. "Mokona will give you the power to travel between dimensions at will. Mokona has other powers, too, but that's the most important one. But before I let you run off with such a powerful bundle of magic, you'll be required to pay a price."

Sakura nodded, knowing the sooner she paid, the sooner she'd be able to go out and collect Syaoran's feathers.

"Why the hell do we have to pay for that?" the dark-haired man demanded. "I was forced to come here."

"And if you don't take my offer, you'll be forced to stay."

"What the—" He broke off as the blond man whispered something in his ear. "What do you _mean _I'm stuck here?"

"The price to travel through all the worlds is higher than any of you can afford. That is why all three of you arrived here at once. Each of you will pay part of the price. It was Hitsuzen that allowed you to come here, and it is Hitsuzen that binds you together now."

"Hitsuzen?" the blond echoed, sounding curious.

"You might call it fate, destiny, or inevitability. The laws of Hitsuzen state that no occurrence is random chance or coincidence, but a decided outcome that affects everything else in turn. Now, let's get to naming prices, shall we?" A grin curved up her lips.

The dark-haired man made a move as if to argue, but before he could, Sakura asked, "What's my price?"

The witch sobered up, looking between her and Syaoran. "The precious thing you have to give up . . . is your relationship with him."

A jolt went through her. _T__ake away our relationship? _"How?" she whispered. "How is that possible?"

"Whatever happens on this journey, you will never be able to recover the relationship the two of you shared before coming here. That will be your price."

Sakura felt numb, her mind still reeling at the price. But if there were people out there who could cut open the edge of the world and slip in like a scorpion through cracks in the walls, wasn't it just as likely that abstract things like love could be taken away, too? _But if I don't pay the price, there'll _be _no relationship._

Distantly, she was aware of the dark-haired man arguing with Yuuko about his prized sword. Any other day, Sakura might have pitied him for having to give up his most valued possession, but right now, she just felt cold. _Does that mean Syaoran will never love me? Or does that mean she's going to take away _my _love? And if I stop loving him, how will I ever be committed to finding his feathers?_

The grumpy man handed over his sword, a fine piece of steel with a dragon carved into the hilt. Next, the magician was asked to give up his tattoo. Sakura tried to listen closer, tried to tell herself that, whatever her price, the burden was not too great next to what they were sacrificing. _Relationships can be repaired, after all. Maybe I'll be able to make friends with him again. As long as he lives._

Two trails of saltwater ran down her face, obscured by the heavy rain. She'd almost forgotten how strange it was, feeling the cool droplets hit her face. _There must be many strange worlds out there, _she thought. _Syaoran would know more about that than me, he's been traveling his whole life. But how long will it be until he can tell me anything about the different places he's been? How long until he'll open his eyes?_

The blond had finished working out his price with the witch. From what Sakura could tell, he'd agreed to sacrifice the swirling pattern on his back. _I wonder why that was so important to him. _

"Now, back to you," Yuuko said, clearly addressing her. She glanced up. "Will you agree to pay the price?"

_Syaoran would've agreed. It would have hurt him, but he would've agreed. _Two more tears slipped down her moistened face. "I will. Whatever it takes."

The witch nodded in approval and handed her Mokona. Sakura flinched when the white creature spoke. "Are you ready to go?"

"I . . . Yes. Let's go."

Mokona smiled and sprouted wings. _So many strange things, _she thought, dazed. A magic circle enveloped them, and the dark liquid swallowed them up. Sakura held onto Syaoran, holding his hand until her fingers ached with the effort. She felt the distortion pulling her up, away from this world, and cast one final glance at Yuuko. The woman smiled and called to them. "I wish you all the best of luck on your journey!"

In the time it took for Sakura to inhale, they fell into a new world. And in that world, people were pointing spears at them.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_I know the story seems to be hugging the original plot pretty closely so far, but don't worry. Over the next few chapters, we're going to go totally AU. We just had to let Sakura get through all this exposition first. There's also something you need to know before you continue: in this fic, you will see some familiar worlds and some unfamiliar worlds. They won't follow the same order as they did in the original series. The reason for this is because Syaoran lost his feathers, not Sakura, and the circumstances of their loss was different from the original Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Therefore, the feathers didn't land in the same places. Since none of that ever happened in this AU, the characters can't tell you about it, and I have to explain it here. Don't worry, though. You'll still be seeing some familiar worlds._


	4. Names

Chapter Four

The chaos that followed their landing was like walking out into the middle of a sandstorm without a cloak.

"She's a witch! Burn her!" one of the spear-wielding men said, a blood vessel pulsing on his forehead.

"Kentaro, get Erii's crossbow!"

"What are they _wearing_?"

Sakura stared the spear touching her cloak and remembered the feeling of steel against her throat. "Wait, we're not witches!" she cried.

"Stand back, men, she's going to cast a spell!"

The blond man who'd given up his tattoo grinned. "It looks like we're in a bit of a predicament, wouldn't you say, Mr. Black?"

The red-eyed man glanced back at him with a look of fury. "_What_ did you call me?"

The blond shrugged. "Well, you didn't exactly give me your name. What am I supposed to call you?"

"My name is Kurogane!"

The three spear-wielding men exchanged glances at the casual exchange, and chattered amongst themselves. It took Sakura a moment to realize she understood what they were saying. _Syaoran said most countries had their own language. Wouldn't other worlds have different languages, too? _She frowned, confused. "Excuse me," she said, figuring they would understand. Instead, the man nearest to her jabbed the spear at the hollow of her throat, poking her hard enough to draw a pinprick of blood to the surface.

"Don't talk, _witch_. We won't have you casting your black magic around here."

The blond was smiling again. "I know we don't understand your culture very well, but is it normal to go around poking sharp sticks at little girls?"

For the first time, Sakura saw the red-eyed man—Kurogane, he'd called himself—smile. It was a vicious sort of smile, similar to some she'd seen on Touya, but much more menacing. "Don't think I need a sword to deal with these weaklings," he said, hand tightening into a fist.

A new voice broke out from behind the men. "Don't hurt them! They're our guests."

The men with spears glanced between the speaker and their group, looking wary and confused. "What do you mean, Yuzuriha?"

"They are the travelers Lady Yuuko told us about. Lay down your spears. Now."

Either the girl held some sort of authority, or the men had decided Kurogane and the slender blond were too much a threat to try to fight. They retreated, lowering the points of their spears. Sakura turned to Syaoran, remembering her priorities now that her life was out of danger. "Excuse me. My friend needs assistance. We're looking for these special feathers, to restore his soul."

The men looked at her suspiciously. One of them said, "She's looking for a way to channel her power. She must be a witch."

The girl named Yuzuriha came closer. Her hair was sleek and dark, like Yuuko's, but her skin was just a few shades lighter than Kurogane's. Her shirt had come from some wolf-like animal, judging by the skin taken off the head, and she had a necklace made of ribs and teeth. The men were dressed more plainly, in leather loincloths. Sakura guessed that the girl, as young as she was, must have had some status among her people to command such brutish men.

"They won't hurt us," Yuzuriha assured her hunters. "In fact, they're here to help."

Kurogane didn't look thrilled by this, but rather than saying anything, he crossed his arms out in front of him, his expression demanding an explanation.

"You were sent by Lady Yuuko, yes? You will come to camp with us, eat of our bread and meat."

"That would be lovely," the blond man said.

"Is there any place where—" Sakura began to ask, moving her hands over Syaoran.

The girl raised her hand in a comforting gesture, halting the flow of words. "We have room for all of you. Come this way, please."

They were led through the thick undergrowth to a cluster of tents made from tanned animal hides. One of the natives, a thickset man with a simple bone necklace, hoisted Syaoran over his shoulder and carried him, moving with ease over the exposed roots and squishy moss. Sakura kept close to that one, her eyes flickering to Syaoran's slackened features every few seconds.

"We call ourselves the people of the wolves," Yuzuriha said, making a sweeping gesture toward the cluster of tents. "Our territory extends three days up-and-downriver from this camp, but we have other settlements set up within our borders. Here, let me show you to our healer, Arashi." The dark-haired girl took her hand and towed her over to one of the larger tents. Smoke rose out through a hole in the top, and the smell of herbs and spices was almost overpowering.

A woman looked up at their entrance, the only occupant of this large structure. She appeared to be in the middle of grinding plants into a paste. "Yuzuriha. You have brought them?"

"Yes, Arashi. They are the people you saw in your night-fires, are they not?"

The woman examined them with a distant look in her eyes. "Yes, these are the people the good witch sent to us."

Sakura blinked. _How can she know about us already? _she wondered. _It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since we met Yuuko-san. _

"Come in," Arashi said, beckoning them. "Roku, set the boy down on that mat, if you would."

The stout man obeyed without a word, setting him down on the indicated straw mat. The woman waited until he and Yuzuriha were gone before addressing them again. "I'm afraid I know little of you except what Lady Yuuko has told me. May I have your names?"

"Kurogane," said the red-eyed man. "Of Nihon."

The blond man introduced himself next, bowing formally. "Fai D. Fluorite, wizard of Ceres, at your service."

"I'm Sakura," she murmured. "Princess of Clow. And he," she said, indicating the boy on the mat, "is my dear friend Syaoran."

Arashi nodded. "He has lost something very important, I see."

The casual knowledge unnerved her in a way Yukito's powers never had. "Yes. That's the reason I'm traveling. I need to find the pieces of what he lost. They're in the shape of feathers." She frowned, wishing she had a more adequate explanation.

The man named Fai glanced at her. Faster than she could react, his hand shot out and plucked something from the inside of her sleeve. "You mean like this?" he asked, holding up a large, brown feather. Sakura stared at the angular shape, at the crisp black pattern etched into the light brown background. It looked just like the feathers that had flown away from Syaoran in the ruins. She reached out to examine the feather, her thumb tracing the ridge down the middle.

Fai was going on. "It must've gotten stuck to your clothes when he lost them. Isn't that lucky?"

She stared at the feather a moment longer, then turned to Syaoran, lying motionless on the mat. Experimentally, she moved closer. It felt almost as if the feather was being pulled toward Syaoran's heart. _Is that where it's supposed to go? _she wondered. It didn't make much sense to her how his body could possibly absorb the feather, but even in the hour since she'd woken up in her bedroom, she'd seen a lot of things that didn't make sense. She decided to trust her gut, moving the feather so it sat over his chest. As soon as she moved her hand away, his body seemed to ripple, and the feather dissolved, merging with him.

"Amazing," she whispered, touching his face. His skin had warmed.

"I think finding more of these feathers will help restore him to his normal state," Arashi said. "If you'd like, I can take care of him here while you search the area."

The offer warmed her heart a little bit, and for the first time in an hour, she was able to calm down. "I . . . I'm grateful, but how will we know where to find another feather?"

The man named Kurogane let out an exasperated sigh. "You mean you agreed to this without even knowing how to look for the damn things?"

She flinched, then turned her head as the white creature spoke. "Mokona knows!" it said, referring to itself in the third-person. "The feather gave off really big waves. Mokona should be able to track them wherever they are."

She picked the round creature up off the ground, beaming. "You mean it? You'll help me look?"

"Well I won't," Kurogane said. "It's not my job to baby-sit, and it's certainly not my job to go out there looking for some stupid, magical _thing_. I want to go back to my home world. That's all I want. Don't expect me to stick my neck out for you. Don't expect me to help you. I won't do it."

She grimaced, looking down. "Okay."

He looked surprised by her quick agreement, but said nothing. The magician looked over to her, smiling widely. "I'll go along with you, Sakura-chan, since Kuro-rin won't."

"What the hell did you call me?"

"Would you prefer Kuro-wan, or Kuro-chi, or . . ."

"I would _prefer _you to call me by my real name."

"Oh, but your real name is so _long_. I can't possibly remember something that difficult."

Sakura glanced away from the budding argument, her gaze automatically going to Syaoran. Despite the feather Fai-san had plucked from her sleeve, his skin was still a few degrees cooler than normal. She could only take that as a bad sign. _Whatever happens, I have to find his feathers, _she told herself. _Even if I have to do it alone. _She stood, brushing her reddish-blond hair behind her ear, and bowed to Arashi-san, who had gone back to grinding up herbs. "Thank you for your hospitality," she said. "I will try to find the feather as soon as I can."

Fai stood up as well. "We'd best be going then. Are you coming or not, Kuro-pii?"

The dark-haired man stood up, a snarl on his lips. "Quit calling me that."

"Aw, don't you like the name?" Fai said, his eyes glistening with mock tears. Their expressions contrasted so sharply that Sakura had to repress the urge to giggle. _There's no time for that, _she told herself. _Syaoran's still in danger. _

That sobered her up some, and she bowed to her new companions. "I will do everything I can not to be a burden to you," she vowed. The two looked at her, their expressions turning to matching looks of surprise.

After a moment, the magician smiled again and said, "It's time to be on our way, then."

Mokona popped out of Kurogane's shirt, much to his surprise, and pointed north. "The feather is that way!"

Sakura cast one final glance at the unconscious boy lying on the mat and stepped out into the patchy sunlight of the jungle.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_Another quick thing you may need to know for this story: the characters will not always say the same things they did in the original series. There are several reasons for this, the foremost being that manga relies heavily on dialogue to explain, because it has very little in the way of narrative. Since this is a written story, with narrative, the purpose and use of the dialogue changes a little. Also, since Sakura and Syaoran have switched roles, some characters, such as Fai, might change their way of speaking to interact with the different person. And other times, I'll pull bits of dialogue straight from the manga, as I did with some of Kurogane's lines. This will happen less and less as we progress into the story, as the plot will branch off significantly in the future._


	5. Wolves

Chapter Five

"Here, take these," Yuzuriha said, running up to them with an armful of spears. "It's not safe to go out without weapons."

Startled by the offer, Sakura took the long wooden shafts into her arms. "Weapons?"

Kurogane plucked one of the spears from her arms and turned it to examine the bone point. Fai did the same, comparing it with the elaborate staff he'd been carrying.

"Thank you," Sakura said after a moment, turning the last spear so it sat awkwardly in her hands. "But what do we need weapons for?"

"We call ourselves the people of the wolves, because wolves are fierce, territorial animals. Lately, though, they've been even more vicious than usual, banding together in packs of ten or twelve and attacking small villages. It's not safe to go out in such a small group without appropriate weapons."

She frowned, guessing the weapon would be little use to her when she didn't know how to use it. But Syaoran had once told her that in some cultures, it was rude to refuse gifts, so she said nothing.

"I'm afraid we can't spare any men to accompany you. Some of them have been missing for almost five days now." Yuzuriha frowned.

"Missing? Why are we just finding out about this _now_?" Kurogane demanded.

Sakura winced, expecting the dark-haired girl to get irritated with his brash questions. Instead, her expression softened. "Yes. We sent five of our best hunters out a few days ago. We were expecting them back within a day or so, but we've seen no trace of them since they left. We fear the wolves got to them."

"Oh," Sakura said, glancing at her feet. "Well, we'll keep an eye out for them."

The other girl smiled sadly. "That would be very kind of you."

They exchanged quick goodbyes, and left the circle of tents. Once they were well out of earshot, Kurogane turned to her. "Hold the spear like this," he said, extending his weapon out, one hand halfway between the center and the top, the other down farther. "It'll give you more control."

Surprised by the advice, she adjusted her grip. "Thank you."

"There's no point in having a weapon if you don't know how to use it. Spears should be pretty simple, but you won't be able to get much use out of it if you're holding it wrong."

She nodded, then returned her attention to the jungle in front of them, doing her best not to trip over the exposed roots. It occurred to her that this wasn't the kind of place that was supposed to have wolves, but maybe that was because she'd come from a world where wolves lived in temperate forests, not humid jungles. _I've never left Clow before today, _she thought glumly. _How would I know anything of my world, let alone a new one?_

She sighed, prompting Fai to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"I can't help but think Syaoran would be better at this. He traveled to many different countries, back in our world. I never even left my own."

The magician thought about that for a few seconds. "Maybe he would. But every world has different rules. In worlds like mine, magic is abundant. Here, it seems like the only person who knew anything of magic was that healer. The technology in each world seems to be different, too. Yuuko-san had a lot of neat things in her shop, but this world is like a distant past compared to hers."

Sakura nodded slowly. "That makes sense."

"We don't really know how well your friend would've acclimated to these changing worlds, and at this point, there's not much reason to speculate on it."

"I guess so."

Kurogane sighed. "Are we even heading in the right direction?"

Mokona had taken up residence in Fai's shirt this time. The round creature poked its head out of the magician's clothes and pointed. "The feather is that way."

"How far?"

"Mokona can't tell," it said. "But when we get close, Mokona will go like this!" Suddenly, the creature's black eyes opened wide, and it made a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a squeal. Sakura blinked, both unnerved and in adoration of the creature's shiny black-and-white eyes.

"Great," Kurogane grumbled. "So we're just going to walk until we find it?"

"That's right."

Kurogane sighed again, and they continued pushing through the undergrowth. Sakura kept her eyes open for the wolves Yuzuriha had mentioned, but it was Kurogane who first sensed them. "There," he said, pointing his spear toward a cluster of moss-covered trees. "Two of them."

Sakura tensed, hands tightening around her weapon. She took a stance mimicking those of her traveling companions, and glanced around, looking for other threats.

The first two animals slunk out of the shadows, and for a moment, Sakura wondered how they were classified as wolves when their bodies had the supple curves of jungle cats. Their heads were the most wolf-like thing about them, sporting a long muzzle with rows of jagged teeth. Twin tails split off from the other end of their body, longer and less fluffy-looking than any wolf tail she'd seen in books. _Definitely a jungle cat, _she thought. "What do we do?"

"Maybe they're friendly," Fai said, waving at them. The larger of the two snarled, a distinctly canine sound.

"Maybe they're not." Kurogane stepped forward, the tip of his spear pointing out toward the bizarre creatures. At the threat, they leapt forward.

Chaos erupted amongst the trees then, faster than Sakura could've expected. The nearest wolf shot forward, pouncing for Kurogane's throat. The armor-clad warrior sidestepped the strike, aiming his spear at the wolf's soft underbelly. The creature twisted in midair, earning itself only a grazing blow where it might have received a fatal wound. Kurogane turned, bringing the dull end of his spear around to strike the beast's jaw.

The second animal sensed weakness in Sakura's stance and lunged for her. She pointed her spear in that direction, hoping against hope that the tip of her spear would puncture the animal's throat. And also hoping it wouldn't. Yukito had taught her that every life, no matter how seemingly insignificant, was valuable. To take the life of another being, even one that was attacking her, made her feel sick.

Before she could think things through much further than that, the wolf jumped up, claws extended to rip her face open. Too late, she lifted her spear up to block. The beast's hooked claws came down in a rapid motion, and she closed her eyes, ready to feel them shred her from eye to chin.

A loud _thwack _resonated through the clearing. Sakura's eyes flashed open to see the shaft of Fai's spear smashing into the wolf's face. "Hyuu!" he sang. "That was a close one, wasn't it?"

"What the hell was _that _noise, mage?" Kurogane demanded. Sakura noticed he never just _asked _a question. All his questions came with an edge, like there would be consequences for a wrong answer.

"Well, I can't whistle, so . . ." Fai smiled, bringing his spear around to strike the wolf before it attacked again. Sakura cringed away from the sound of solid wood hitting flesh.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Kurogane bury the tip of his spear into the wolf's spine. A yowl of pain exploded through the creature's teeth before it collapsed onto the dirt, dead.

"Nice one, Kuro-rin."

"I told you not to—Hey, watch out!"

Fai danced out of the way of the remaining wolf's claws; the attack missed by millimeters. The magician grinned as if he was playing a game instead of fighting.

The misshapen creature changed tactics, turning for Sakura again. She lifted her spear so it was horizontal in front of her. The beast's jaw clamped down around the handle, snapping it in half with a splintering sound. Sakura threw herself backwards, a reflex that ended up with her hitting her head on a rock. Pain jolted through her head and for one awful second, the rest of her body went numb from the force of the impact. She couldn't focus on those pains though, because right then, the wolf landed on top of her, pinning her down with its massive paws.

She saw two dozen yellowed teeth bearing down on her, and lifted her arms to block the bite.


	6. Snarls

Chapter Six

Up until this point, Sakura had never really known the scent of dog breath. As insignificant as it should been, pinned down by the beast's claws, it broke through her concentration and drove her to bat the wolf's head away with the back of her hand. Pain shot through her knuckles at the impact, and with a half-gleeful, half-frightened feeling, she realized she'd hit the hard joint where the wolf's lower jaw connected with the rest of the head.

_Lucky shot, _she thought irrelevantly, seeing the creature recoil. One hand shot out, reaching for one of the halves of her broken spear. Her fingers coiled around the shaft, and her whole body jerked, bringing the splintered end up. The jagged end buried itself in the wolf's eye, bursting the shiny orb as it drove into the brain. Blood and other fluids sprayed out at her face, forcing her to shut her eyes, but there was nothing she could do to close her ears as the wolf's howl peaked and suddenly cut off.

It was a long moment before she could open her eyes. When she did, she scrambled out from underneath the furry body, staring at it in horror. _I killed something, _she thought, nausea turning the walls of her stomach. Before she could think anything else, she was kneeling in the dirt, retching up what she'd had for dinner last night.

The others waited for her to finish without a word. She wiped the blood and bile off her face and got to her feet.

"We should probably get going," Fai said, not smiling for once.

She nodded, fighting back tears as she looked back at her kill. "Right."

They started walking again, a bit slower and more warily than before. Sakura could tell from the others' postures that, while they were looking forward, they were aware of everything around them. They seemed to move through the undergrowth easily, as if they faced such terrain every day. Sakura found herself tripping every few steps, feet getting tangled on exposed roots and once, on themselves.

"We've got company," Kurogane said after almost half an hour of walking. Sakura glanced around, instantly aware.

"More wolves?" she asked.

"No. Men."

The words sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine. _But Yuzuriha-san said it was the wolves that had been attacking their villages._

"Hey, come out!" Kurogane yelled into the trees. Sakura watched as five men emerged from the foliage. They wore the same leather loincloths she'd seen other men wearing in the village, but theirs were caked in dried mud and laced with twigs. Their skin also had a dirty quality to it, as if they had not bathed in several days.

As they emerged, Sakura saw Mokona's eyes flash wide open.

"And who might you be, travelers?" said a rangy man with a feather necklace. It took her a moment to recognize the large brown feather at the center.

"We're looking for something," she said, pointing to the feather on his necklace. "I think you might have found it."

The other men glanced uneasily between the speaker and her new traveling companions. She could see from their postures that each of them took a subordinate role to the thin man, orienting themselves around him in a defensive stance. _Their leader, then. _

"I'm afraid we won't be giving up this little treasure anytime soon," the leader said. "It's a strange little thing. Lucky. Keeps us strong for days on end, so we don't need to take orders from a fourteen-year-old girl."

"Well," Fai said, turning to Kurogane. "It looks like we're not getting out of here without a fight."

Kurogane raised his spear, a grin splitting his face. "Fine with me."

Another uneasy glance passed between the men. Though they outnumbered their opponents, the confidence of Sakura's companions clearly unnerved them. With a word from their leader, they raised their spears.

"Bring them down," said the leader. The other four darted forward, surprisingly fast given how long they'd been wandering unassisted. Kurogane took one out right away, knocking the man unconscious with a blow to the head.

Fai seemed somewhat entertained by the fight, moving rapidly to evade the swinging spears. Not once did the bone spear points pierce his skin. It was like a perfectly choreographed dance, where each of dancers were set to come within millimeters of drawing blood without ever touching their opponent.

"Don't just jump out of the way like that!" Kurogane yelled, flinging aside another spear and bringing the dull end of his own weapon around to break his enemy's arm. The man crumpled to the ground, clutching the appendage where the bone jutted out through the skin. Sakura looked away, sickened by the damage. _At least he didn't kill him, _some part of her mind thought distantly. _I wonder why that is. _

Fai was still dodging out of the way of his opponent's blows. He didn't even seem winded. The two men took positions across from each other, intending to come at him from both sides. The magician's expression shifted, his amused smile turning confident for one second, just as his enemies thrust their spears at him from opposite directions. Moving like a desert snake, Fai twisted out of the way, one hand on each of the threatening weapons. He pulled, manipulating the spear-wielders so that they both lurched forward, foreheads smashing together. Both went down, and Fai danced away from the pile, making that strange sound that substituted for a whistle.

"One to go," Kurogane said, pointing his spear at the leader. The rangy man had hung back during the confrontation, expecting his followers to finish them off. Now, he clutched the feather on his necklace, the muscles in his arms rigid.

"Stay back, brutes! You know nothing of my powers."

Fai was frowning again. "That feather has increased your natural power to a whole new level, hasn't it? That's what allowed your party to stay so strong despite being isolated from the rest of your tribe."

Fury rolled across the leader's face like a storm cloud. "You cannot face me. I was a shaman before. I am even more powerful now."

_A shaman, _Sakura thought. _That must be why he was able to get so many people to follow him. _She stepped forward. "Excuse me, but what do you intend to do with that feather? How will you survive out here?"

He smirked. "Simple. I control the wolves."

The ground below her suddenly felt as solid as air. Sakura gasped, stepping back.

"So the missing men . . ." Fai murmured, his blue eyes focusing on a figure as it slunk through the trees.

"That's right," the leader said, eyes shining with cruel amusement. "They wouldn't join my little band, so I let the wolves have them. I've always had an affinity for animals. With the magic feather, it was no difficult task to bind them to me, ten at a time."

Sakura could see the wolves now, circling them, slipping through the trees like shadows. Her fingers tightened, as if she still held the spear she'd snapped in half when the other wolves had attacked her. Yuzuriha's insistence on having a weapon suddenly seemed a lot more reasonable.

The wolves broke through the tree line, low snarls issuing forth from their throats. Sakura glanced around, counting. _One, two . . . Six, seven . . . Eleven. Eleven wolves. _

Yep, it would've really nice to have that spear right about now.

"Hyuu!" Fai sang, twirling his elaborate staff in the air. Sakura envied him the weapon, but before she could think it through any further, he tossed his spear to her. "It might be a good time to have this, Sakura-chan," he said, beaming at her with that strange, too-cheerful grin of his.

It didn't matter though, now that she had a weapon. The wolves drew closer, circling them like vultures. Sakura tried to hold her spear the way Kurogane-san had showed her.

"Let's make this quick," the skinny man said, gesturing emphatically to the wolves. Snarls exploded through the clearing, reverberating in her bones. The two wolves closest to her pounced, their movements occurring so close together, they looked synchronized. Sakura raised her spear, then changed her mind, darting out of the way before the creatures could bury their claws in her. Behind her, Kurogane and Fai battled the rest of the wolves. She heard a series of sickening snaps as the two men batted aside the animals.

Fighting, she was beginning to realize, was nothing more than chaos with the intention of destroying the opposing party before they destroyed you. Everything moved rapidly around her, flashes of light and dark, monochrome and color. In the frenzy, her spear connected with one of the wolves, burying itself deep in the beast's shoulder. A howl rose from the creature's throat before it fell silent.

There was no time to mourn or feel guilt. Sakura turned to block another bite and slammed the side of her spear into a wolf's head. A third rushed up to her from behind, and for a fraction of a second too long, she hesitated. Hooked claws ripped into her shoulder, spraying blood across the wolf's white muzzle. She went down, landing hard on her side before rolling back to her feet. One arm weakened, she couldn't hold her spear properly, and had to bury the blunt end in the mud to keep it stable. She managed to angle it so that, when the next wolf came after her, the tip pierced its throat.

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's not your fault, _she thought, watching the animal collapse in front of her. The more practical part of her mind was telling her to cut the connection between the wolves and the man with the feather.

More blood ran down her shoulder, staining her cloak.

_Have to break the connection. _She turned, eyes scanning the trees around her for any sight of the thin man. He'd disappeared from the clearing. _Wouldn't he have to be close to command the wolves? _she wondered, just as a wiry arm wrapped around her throat.

Sakura gasped. The sound of her panic must've been loud enough to carry across the clearing, because she saw her new companions turn toward her.

The spear was wrenched from her hand, hard enough to make her fingers sting. A moment later, she felt the point of it resting at her throat, poking into her skin. _How many times is this going to happen to me today? _she wondered.

The wolves were still attacking the others. Should her captor choose to kill her outright, they'd have no time to help her.

_Since when do you need help? _some part of her mind demanded. _You were never helpless in Clow. Everyone followed you, everyone listened. There were always guards nearby, or Touya, or Syaoran. But now that you're alone, you're suddenly weak and helpless?_

"Stay still, girl," her captor growled. She hadn't realized she'd been struggling.

_I have to break the connection between him and the wolves. And the only way to do that . . . _She opened her eyes, letting them roll upward so she could see the man's neck. His feather necklace dangled down, the long, brown feather at its center.

The man was staring out at the confrontation, directing his wolves with sweeping, one-armed gestures. _He doesn't think I'm going to try anything, _Sakura realized, a little spark of anger jolting through her. The unfamiliar emotion prompted her to struggle anew. As she did, one of her arms broke free of the man's grasp and shot up to wrap around the feather. She yanked as hard as she could, ripping the feather free of the necklace.

All the chaos of a moment ago boiled over into one massive surge of movement.


	7. Awakenings

Chapter Seven

Wolves, as it turned out, were not as loyal as their domestic counterparts.

As soon as Sakura tore the feather from the shaman's necklace, the surviving wolves redirected their attention to the man. Some of them looked, as much as any animal could, confused by the situation. The rest looked like the predators they were.

Fai sensed the change first, ignoring the wolf that had been trying to rip his throat out in favor of watching the shaman.

"Stay back!" the man yelled, holding onto his broken necklace with one hand, as if it would ward off the wolves. The remaining beasts edged forward, snarls on their tongues. Sakura skittered away, clutching the feather tight to her chest. As soon as she was out of the way, the surviving wolves shot forward, ganging up on their leader. Seeing their disobedience, the man turned and ran. One wolf leapt for his throat, followed by two others.

Sakura covered her ears and averted her eyes, wishing either action could keep her from feeling the man's grating screams vibrate in her bones, wishing her hands could mask the sound of teeth ripping apart flesh. All the while, she kept Syaoran's feather in contact with her skin. It was warm, and it smelled like him, and it was the closest thing she had to comfort in the moment.

Minutes passed before the grating screams died down, and she felt a light pressure on her shoulder. Fai knelt in front of her, looking at her with a solemn expression. She removed her hands from her ears, feeling the tingling rush brought on by the restoration of blood flow. Legs shaking, she stood up.

"We should go back," Fai said, offering a hand to help her stay steady. She switched the feather to her non-dominant hand and took his, grateful for the assistance.

The walk out of camp had seemed arduous, as if the roots and trees were all conspiring to bring her to her knees. The walk back seemed shorter. With the feather in hand, she'd gained a guarded sense of hope. That was enough to sustain her through the walk, sticky with sweat and wolf blood as she was.

_And my own blood, too, _she thought, lifting a hand to feel the four gashes in her shoulder. Though the red fluid had seeped into her desert cloak, none of the wounds were more than half an inch deep. _I was lucky there, _she thought. _Next time, I might not be. _

Yuzuriha-san was waiting for them at the edge of the village, a dozen people lined up behind her. "Arashi saw everything!" the dark-haired girl cried, and Sakura was terrified by the realization that she and her companions had essentially slaughtered the village's shaman in the fight.

Before she could think it through any further, Yuzuriha ordered two villagers to fetch Arashi. "Are the rest of you all right?" she asked, once the most obvious injury had been addressed.

"Fit as a fiddle," Fai said.

"We're fine," Kurogane grumbled, as if correcting the mage's cheerful response.

"I'm glad. When Arashi saw the wolves attack you, we assumed the worst."

Sakura piped up. "May I go see Syaoran? I need to return this feather to him."

"Of course. He's still in Arashi's tent. We should head over there right away." Gingerly, the dark-haired girl took her hand and led her to the large tent.

"The medicine's almost ready," Arashi said, looking between them. "You should get those wounds treated, Sakura. Wolf claws can leave bad spirits in a wound. They need to be purified as soon as possible."

"Oh, but . . . Can I have a minute with Syaoran?"

The healer made a gesture of acquiescence, and Sakura went over to the straw mat where Syaoran lay. _Please, with this feather, wake up._

She released the feather, watching his flesh ripple like a disturbed puddle. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kurogane and Fai peer in through the open tent flap.

Sakura took Syaoran's hand, feeling the rapid increase in temperature as the feather's energy spread through his body. A shiver of relief traveled down her spine as she saw his eyes flutter. "I'm right here," she said, keeping her voice soft so as not to startle him.

Syaoran's eyelids slid open. His eyes were unfocused, almost as if he was still lost in his dreams, but after a moment, his head lolled to the side, and he looked at her.

"Who are you?"

The world around her went still as the words echoed in her ears. _"Who are you?" He doesn't know? How could he not know? _

Her voice wavered. "You don't remember me?"

He blinked slowly. There was no recognition in his eyes, no sign of any feeling or emotion at all. After a moment, he said, "No."

_This was the price, _she realized suddenly, eyes stinging with nascent tears. _This is what Yuuko-san meant when she said our relationship would never be the same. He'll never remember me. _"You don't remember anything at all?"

This question made him think a little bit. "I remember faces," he finally said. "Lots of faces. And a country surrounded by sand."

_But you don't remember me. I was your best friend for years, and you don't remember a single thing about me._ She tried to fight against the hurt welling up in her chest, tried to tell herself that if he didn't remember anything at all, it might be coincidence that he didn't remember her. _That must be it. The feathers hold his memories, too. Coincidence. _

Somewhere in her mind, she heard the witch's words: _"The laws of Hitsuzen state that no occurrence is random chance or coincidence . . ."_

_It can't be, _Sakura thought. _This can't be the price. It's not fair._

_It _is _fair, _another part of her thought. _You sacrificed your relationship with him. The only way to make sure you would pay the price was to prevent him from knowing about your past. _The budding tears overflowed, running down her cheeks. Syaoran looked dully at the salty drops, unaffected.

It was that dull look that broke her. She let go of his hand, shooting to her feet in her haste to escape. As she ran out, arm pressed against her face to sponge up her tears, her shoulder brushed the magician's shoulder. Fai stepped aside, turning to avoid her as she ran out into the camp. She heard him whisper her name once, half-pitying, and half-startled, but she didn't look back.

* * *

><p>The brown-haired boy seemed confused by Sakura's sudden flight, but he either wasn't articulate enough to say anything, or he was still disoriented from receiving another fragment of his heart.<p>

Fai glanced over his shoulder, seeing Sakura stagger and come to rest beside a hollow tree. He walked into the healer's tent and addressed Arashi. "It might be best for you to bring her that medicine now. She could be like this a while."

The healer nodded, picking up her basket of herbs and walking out to meet the princess. As the older woman knelt beside the sobbing girl, Fai turned his attention once again to the boy, sitting cross-legged beside him.

"Did I upset her?" the boy asked, confused. Fai could sense a little twinge of worry in his voice, but more than anything, he heard the vast emptiness that pervaded his speech. The boy wanted to care, but he wasn't well enough to do so.

"It's nothing you did," Fai assured him. "You said you remembered a little bit. Do you remember your name?"

A pause. "I remember someone calling me Syaoran. Is that it?"

_He really doesn't know. He lost all his memories when those feathers flew away from him. But how powerful must that spell have been to overcome him like that? Even I don't have that kind of magic. _"That's what the princess called you."

"Princess?"

"That girl. She's the princess of her country." He tried to recall the country she'd mentioned, but since there was no country by that name in the world of Celes, Fai couldn't remember what it was.

The boy still seemed confused. "This country?"

"No. Another country, in another world. You see, the five of us—you, me, the princess, Mokona, and Kuro-rin—are traveling on this journey to—"

"I told you to quit calling me that," the ninja snarled. Syaoran flinched at his tone as if the rebuke had been directed at him. "My name is Kurogane."

_Right, we still have more introductions. _"And I am Fai D. Fluorite, wizard of Celes."

Some small spark of interest lit up Syaoran's face. "There are wizards in your country?"

Fai nodded. "In my whole world, actually. You see, we're on a journey, going to a bunch of different worlds, to help the princess find these feathers to restore your lost memories."

"That sounds like a fairy-tale."

Fai had seen too many things in his life to doubt the validity of fairy-tales, but he figured this wasn't the time to say so. "Every world we visit is going to have different rules. Some worlds may seem like fairy-tales at first, but make perfect sense within themselves." He knew there were better ways to describe it, but he wasn't sure how to explain it to someone with no magical background. So instead of going into a technical lecture on magic, he patted the boy's forehead and said, "Don't worry. We'll figure things out more as we go on, I think. Mr. Black and I will take care of everything."

"That is not my—"

Fai turned, standing up in one fluid motion. "Kuro-sama, don't you think you might be a little loud for our patient right now?"

The red-eyed man glared at him, hand going to his hip in search of the sword he'd traded away. It surprised Fai a little when the dark-haired man glanced over to the bedridden boy. The man's anger dulled, and he turned to look out beyond the tent, where Arashi was comforting Sakura-chan. "That's all fine and good for now, but what are we going to do about her?"

"What do you mean?"

"You saw her back there. I could see her being unskilled with a spear, but she's too clumsy and hesitant in a fight. I can't imagine anyone's ever taught her a thing about fighting, but she'll need to learn how if she wants to survive."

Fai glanced back over to the boy on the mat, to see if he was following this conversation. To his surprise, the kid had lapsed back into sleep, his whole body slack and unmoving. _An unnatural sleep, _Fai thought, _from not having enough life force to stay awake. _

"You handled yourself pretty well back there," the ninja said after a moment, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You're a combat veteran; I can tell just by the way you move."

Fai smiled to hide his shock. _I was being careful, _he thought. _I was holding back, and he _still _noticed. _"I've been in a few scuffles," he admitted, downplaying his experience.

"It's more than that. You're too good to have learned from fights alone. You've had formal training."

"Kuro-wan, you're so perceptive." _Too perceptive._

The red-eyed man watched him a moment longer, speculating. "The princess is just as much of a liability as the other kid until she gets some formal training. I'd do it myself, but I don't happen to have a sword on me right now. You got anything you can teach her?"

Fai shrugged, holding his smile in place. "I can show her a few things. After she's calmed down a bit, that is." _And once I know you won't be watching. After all, there's no reason to go spilling secrets so carelessly, is there?_


	8. Spas

Chapter Eight

"You're leaving already?" Yuzuriha asked as they gathered up their things. Her eyebrows slanted back, her eyes shimmering with distress.

"I'm afraid so," Fai said, resting a hand atop Sakura's head. "Sakura-chan needs to keep looking for the feathers, and the only way to do that is to visit different worlds."

"Oh, but . . ." The dark-haired girl frowned. "Can you wait just one minute? I have something I want to give you."

Sakura glanced up, curious. Next to her, Syaoran's head tilted up in response. He was awake again, if a bit groggy, and he seemed to be taking behavioral cues from the people around him. _Like a little kid, _Sakura thought.

Yuzuriha-san ran off for a moment, digging through a stack of leather-wrapped supplies. When she returned, she handed Sakura a package. "It's not much, but I wanted to thank you for solving our wolf problem."

Sakura knelt down and unwrapped the package. Concealed within was a small bow made of elegantly carved wood, alongside a dozen bone-tipped arrows. Even with no background knowledge of the bow, she could tell from the elaborate markings that a great deal of time had gone into making this weapon.

"I can teach you how to use that," Fai said suddenly, beaming as if this was some great revelation.

Yuzuriha spoke. "Everyone should have some way to defend themselves. That's especially true when you're traveling to so many strange places."

Sakura couldn't resist—she reached out and hugged the other girl. "That's so kind of you."

"It's nothing. A payment for your services here in Ookami-kuni."

Mokona peeked out of Fai's shirt. "Is everyone ready?"

Sakura bowed to Yuzuriha, who returned the gesture after a brief hesitation. Sakura wondered if such gestures were unusual in the country.

"Might as well get on with it," Kurogane said. Wings sprouted from Mokona's back, and a circle of light formed on the ground around them, overflowing with runes and other markings Sakura didn't recognize. Black liquid spilled out from the space between the dimensions.

"Goodbye everyone!" she called, just as the fluid engulfed them. Her body felt as light as the air around her, and she found herself rushing through the black waters faster than she could've sprinted. A glint of light drew her attention, and her body moved unconsciously toward the glimmer. The ball of color came into focus as they approached, and before she had any time to consider the safety of the world, they hit the—

Water?

Hot liquid rushed up all around her, soaking her white and pink cloak. _And __after all the trouble Arashi-san went to trying to get the blood out, _Sakura thought, her legs flailing under the water. Almost immediately, the soles of her shoes brushed against the smooth stones below, allowing her to stand. The water was only waist-deep, but it was higher than most fountains in Clow, and considerably hotter.

"Oh!" Fai squeaked, having landed on his side and managed to get his furry coat and underclothes wet. "It seems we've landed in a hot spring."

"Hot spring?" she echoed, not sure what he was talking about.

"We had some in my country. Normally, it's too cold to play in the water, but with hot springs, sometimes you can. What about you, Kuro-pon? Did you have hot springs in your country?"

The red-eyed man sighed, annoyed with the nickname. "Nihon had lots of hot springs. People used them for baths."

"Outdoor bathing?" Fai sounded horrified.

"As opposed to what? Are you implying something?"

"Hey," a new voice called. They all turned toward the shrill sound. "What are a bunch of men doing on the girls' spring?"

_Well this is awkward, _Sakura thought. "Sorry. We just kind of ended up here."

The woman sunk deeper into the water, her cheeks glowing red. "Get them _out _of here! This is no place for men."

Sakura sloshed through the warm pool, followed by the others. She glanced behind her, to make sure Syaoran was still awake and following. Though the water seemed to have jolted him out of his stupor, his face was still expressionless. _He doesn't remember how to feel, _she thought, saddened. _He doesn't remember what it feels like to be happy, or how nice it is to have friends who care about you. He doesn't remember anything._

Women observed them as they got out of the hot spring, some with wide-eyed curiosity, others with peals of laughter.

"You just had to drop us here, didn't you, manju bun?"

Mokona jumped out of Fai's shirt and tackled Kurogane. He batted the creature away with his hand. "Mokona _tries. _It's not easy to find a good place to drop in every world while still coming close to the feathers."

Sakura perked up. "So there's a feather in this world?"

Mokona nodded, bobbing her(his?) whole body to do so. "It's faint, but Mokona can sense it."

"It sounds like we're going to be doing a lot of walking."

"Oh, Kuro-pii, you sound so depressed."

"Irritated," Kurogane corrected.

There was a building near the hot springs, with twin paths leading up to it. The architecture confused Sakura. Instead of open doorways with curtains, as there had been in Clow, the walls of this structure seemed to be framed with square sections of wooden beams and covered with a white, papery material. The rooftops were just as strange, jutting out far beyond the perimeter of the walls, and coming to a point on top of the building. As she watched, the wall itself seemed to slide open, and two girls stepped outside, wearing only towels as they scurried up the path.

"This country seems more inviting than the last one," Sakura murmured as they reached the building. Sure enough, two women dressed in their summer kimonos greeted them as they entered.

"Welcome to the Sunset Spa and Inn. Are you here to rent a room, or have you come for a dip in our natural hot springs?

The girl who hadn't spoken noticed their soaked attire. "Ah, Mai-sempai, perhaps we should take care of their clothes before we try to sell them stuff."

The other girl noticed their clothes at last and blinked with surprise. "Oh. That's a good idea. Sorry about that." She plucked several towels from a stack leaning against the wall and tossed one to each of them in turn. Sakura leaned her new bow against the wall, setting the quiver of arrows beside it, before she started sponging off.

"It's no problem," Fai said. Kurogane grumbled something Sakura couldn't hear, and the magician swept on, ignoring him. "It's not the least pleasant place for Mokona to land."

His terminology seemed to confuse the two women, but neither spoke, allowing them to dry off in relative peace. After a few minutes, the one named Mai asked them, "So, were you planning on renting a room, then?"

"Um . . ." Sakura looked toward Fai for guidance, since he was the one who seemed the most diplomatic. He nodded. "Sure. Oh, but we don't have any money, so . . ."

"That's not a problem," said Mai. "We're understaffed. If you help us out, we'll let you stay here for free."

"That would be perfect," the magician said. "What do you need us to do?"

"Well, once you're dried off, you two could start running towels up to the men's bath. Normally, we'd have Masoyoshi-kun do it, but he's had a fever for two days now."

Kurogane had only heard the first part of the sentence. "Us _two_?"

"If you want to stay, you have to work," the girl who wasn't Mai said. "And _you _two can stay here folding and washing towels," she added, turning to Sakura.

"Do we really have to stay here?" Kurogane asked.

"We need to find someplace to sleep," Fai said.

"Syaoran will need rest." Sakura tried to keep her voice firm, but she heard the tremor in it. The red-eyed man seemed somewhat unstable, judging by his short temper, and she wasn't sure how he would react to receiving commands from a young girl.

The warrior glanced at her, then at Syaoran, and exhaled sharply. "I guess we can stay for one night. But after that, you better hurry up and go looking for that feather. I need to get back to my home country."

"Why's that, Kuro-sama?"

"Because I have to tell the one who sent me on this journey to remove a curse."

Fai cocked his head to the side. "The one on your forehead?"

Kurogane looked at him sharply. "Yeah."

"What's it do?"

"Keeps me from killing people."

Sakura blinked, privately glad someone had set a prohibition on him before he'd come here.

"You do that often?" Fai asked, arching one trimmed eyebrow.

The red-eyed man threw him a glare that could make towers crumble. "I was a ninja of Nihon. My job was to protect the Tsukiyomi. If anyone ever threatened her, I killed them. If they threatened me, I killed them. That's all there was to it."

The two women looked uneasily at their group, obviously uncomfortable with the thought of having a professional killer working for them. "Well," Mai said, fumbling for words. "We'll get you all some uniforms, so you can work. Yuka-chan can show you to your rooms, if you want to rest for the night."

"Why do I have to do it?" the girl named Yuka hissed.

"That would be lovely," Fai said, before the two could say anything else.

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, they were split up into two rooms and put into uniforms.<p>

"I'm sorry you two have to share a room," Yuka said, glancing between her and Syaoran. "If it's uncomfortable for you, you can share a room with Mai."

"It's just fine," Sakura said, understanding the implications. Touya had been worried about such things, too, the first few times Syaoran had been allowed into the palace. "Syaoran won't hurt me."

The boy glanced up at the sound of his name, then went back to studying his wet clothes. He seemed perplexed by the dripping folds, as if he'd never seen water before today. _Is it possible to forget something so essential? _Sakura wondered, looking at him uneasily. Of course, since he remembered how to speak, chances were he knew at least some of the basics of living.

"You can start work tomorrow, after breakfast. And if there's any trouble, just call for me or Mai-sempai."

Sakura bowed deeply. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Yuka bowed in return, then slipped out, casting one final glance between them. Sakura turned to Syaoran as the door slid shut. "You should rest."

"Rest?"

"Aren't you tired?"

He had to think about that for a moment. "Yeah. I guess so." He sat down on the edge of his bed, wearing the same dazed look he'd had since waking up.

"Is there anything you need, before you go to sleep?"

He frowned. "I don't remember anything, so I don't know much about what's going on." He paused. "Why are you helping me?"

Her gaze fell to the floor. "Because you need help."

"That's not a very good answer."

"Why not?"

"Because lots of people need help. Don't they?"

She realized just how much he was assuming, and felt a fresh rush of pity for him. "Yes. A lot of people need help. I just chose to help _you_."

"Oh." He frowned, then bowed his head. "I will do my best not to be a burden to you."

Her eyes began to sting with tears. _Oh, Syaoran. _"Don't worry about that right now. Just rest."

He laid down, still looking at her with a distant sort of curiosity. After a moment, he closed his eyes.

_You will never be a burden to me, _she thought, biting her lip as she curled up under her blankets. _Even if you never remember me, I will always take care of you. And I'll return your memories, no matter what._


	9. Towels

Chapter Nine

Folding towels was more complex than Sakura had imagined. Back at the palace, there had been servants to keep the bathrooms stocked, so she'd never spent much time wondering about the mechanics of folding towels, let alone entertained the notion of doing so herself.

"You mean you've never done laundry before?" Mai asked when she said as much, her dark eyes flying open.

Sakura shook her head.

"But aren't you a girl? How could you have never done laundry before?"

She shrugged, not sure if it was wise to bring up her status as royalty in a world that didn't have her country.

Mai sighed. "Okay. I guess I'll have to teach you." She moved one of the clean towels so it laid flat across the table, then folded it in half twice, so it looked like a narrow rectangle. She then proceeded to fold it accordion-style and set it down on the edge of the table. Sakura watched, observing every step. After the older girl had demonstrated, she stepped forward and mimicked the motions. The end product was more of a messy bundle than a neat square.

"You'll want to practice that a few times," Mai said, eyeing her doubtfully as she edged toward the door. "When you've got a stack of five, pick them up at the base and carry them up to the girls' spring, just up that path."

"Okay."

"And you," the girl went on, indicating Syaoran. "can do the same, but bring them up the other path, to the men's spring." She pointed, making sure the boy had the right direction in mind. "When you're both done with that, come down to the laundry room to pick up another basket and start over. Got it?"

Sakura nodded, then nudged Syaoran with her elbow so he would do the same. Mai bid them a quick farewell, then headed back to the reception desk to handle customers. Syaoran moved as if to follow, and Sakura tugged on his shirt sleeve to keep him from leaving. "We have to work," she reminded him, praying his short-term memory would return with the next feather.

Hoping she'd have time to find the next feather after she got done folding towels for the day.

Her first few attempts proved miserable failures, but after that, she started to improve. Syaoran followed her motions, moving at a relatively slow pace. Every few minutes, his hands would go still, and he would stare at the fabric with a distant expression, as if he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. After this happened a few times, Sakura realized he would remember without being prompted if she just kept working. _He's like a child, _she thought. _He learns by imitation. _

Once they'd accumulated presentable stacks of clean towels, they started down the cobblestone path leading to the hot springs. She reminded Syaoran where he needed to go when they reached the fork in the road, and told him what he needed to do. He nodded absently, then went up the correct path. Sakura walked over to the girls' spring, keeping an eye on him until he disappeared beyond an outcropping of rocks.

Steam rose from the bubbling water, obscuring most of the guests. Even so, in the daylight, Sakura could tell most of the people who entered the hot springs did so without clothes. _No wonder they were so panicked when a bunch of strangers landed in the middle of the water, _she thought, setting the towels down on a bamboo shelf secured to the rocks. She wondered just how many of those rocks had been there originally, and how many had been moved from somewhere else to provide adequate cover from peeping toms. From the incongruous colors and textures, she guessed a great deal of them came from elsewhere.

She hurried back down the path, surprised to find Syaoran standing at the fork in the path. "Did you find the right place?" she asked.

He nodded. "There was a shelf labeled 'towels,' so I put them there. Is that okay?"

She blinked. She'd noticed the odd writing engraved in the shelves, but it was not the same as the written language in Clow, and she'd been unable to read it. _So he remembers foreign languages, but he doesn't remember me? _

"Princess?"

Her head snapped up. "Yes?"

"Is . . . Is that what I was supposed to do?"

She nodded. "Yes, that was just right. Come on, we've got more towels to fold."

He followed her back to the building, through the sliding screen door, and into the laundry room where Mai had presented them with their first load of towels. Sakura picked up a basket of clean towels, and watched as Syaoran did the same. _I bet he would copy anything I did, _she thought as they walked. _Even if it was something silly, like dancing in circles._

They made it back to the room with the table, and started folding again. While she doubted her folding skills were anywhere near the level of Mai's or Yuka's, she was proud of her improvement. After a few more loads, her towels always turned into neat little squares.

Half the day had gone by when Sakura noticed the dark circles under Syaoran's eyes. His head bobbed up and down, eyelids sliding shut every few minutes even as they worked. "Are you tired?"

He glanced up, startled by her question. "Tired?" he echoed uncertainly.

"Tired. Like you need to sleep."

His eyelids closed slowly, then slid open again. "Sleep," he murmured wistfully.

Sakura glanced into the laundry room and saw that there were only two baskets of towels left to fold. "Why don't you head back to our room and lie down for a bit? I can take care of the last couple loads."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. From what she could tell, the hot springs weren't too busy today. She would slip in and deliver the towels to each spa before anyone saw her. "I'll be just fine."

"Okay." He trudged out of the room, and turned down the corridor leading to the dormitory. _At least he's going the right way, _she thought, returning her attention to the billowing towel in her hands. She laid it down and started folding, moving quickly to make up for the missing set of hands. When she was done with that, she ran the stack up to the hot spring, moving purposefully so no one would question her even as she slipped into the men's spring to drop off the towels.

As she walked out, a voice pierced the air behind her. "Peeking into the men's hot spring, Sakura-chan?"

She jumped, hands flying up in surprise as her body whirled toward the speaker. "F-Fai-san!" she sputtered. "N-no. I w-w-was . . . Syaoran is s-sleeping so I . . ." Her face turned the color of a strawberry.

The magician grinned. "Well, if you're into that kind of thing . . ."

"I-I . . . N-no. That's not it at all." Was there a more vibrant shade of red than that of strawberries? If there was, her cheeks were almost certainly that color now.

"Just kidding." The magician shifted and leapt down from his platform on the rocks, landing like a cat in the grass.

"Aren't you supposed to be running errands for Mai-san?" she asked.

"Kuro-pon is taking care of everything right now. I'm on break."

"Oh."

"Anyway, we're almost done for the day. We'll be able to look for a feather soon enough."

_That's right, _she thought, as some of the color left her cheeks. _I can't forget why I'm here. I have a duty to perform. _"I'm almost done in the laundry room, too. I've just got one more load of towels to fold." She half-turned, antsy now that Fai had reminded her of her purpose here.

"Sakura-chan," he said. She glanced back, and he started speaking in a normal voice again. "That bow Yuzuriha-chan gave you . . . Do you know how to use it?"

She shook her head. While she'd seen other people using such weapons before, her previous interest in learning to do so was much the same as her interest in doing housework had been.

"So you'll probably need someone to teach you, right?"

She nodded.

Fai smiled, tilting his head up so the sunlight fell across his pale cheeks. When the light hit his eyes, they shined like sapphires. "We had similar instruments in Ceres," he said. It took her a moment to realize he was talking about his home country. "If you want to learn, I can teach you how to use that."

"Really?"

The blond man nodded. "Absolutely. After all, we're going to be traveling a long time. It's probably best if we all know how to defend ourselves."

Excitement flashed through her for the first time since she'd left Clow. "That would be wonderful!"

"Great. So we'll work on that tonight, after we've spent some time looking for the feather."

"Okay." She smiled, feeling the sun against her cheek. "I'll come see you as soon as we're done with work." Without another word, she bounded off toward the Inn, waving to the magician as she went.


	10. Arrows

Chapter Ten

The bow both looked and felt awkward in her hands. "I think it's too big," Sakura said, readjusting her grip so she was holding it like Fai had showed her. Her delicate fingers curled around the smooth wood like bird feet wrapping around a wooden perch.

"Maybe a little," the wizard admitted, nudging her thumb away from the little groove where the arrow was supposed to rest. "It'll have to do. It's good practice anyway. Now take an arrow from the quiver and lay it so it sits on this notch."

She did as she said, hesitating for a moment as she tried to decide which hand she was supposed to hold onto the bow with. Eventually, she settled for keeping her left hand on the sturdy wooden part while freeing her right from the string. She reached back, elbow bending awkwardly as her fingers sought the fletched end of one of the arrows. After a moment, her fingertips grazed the sharp line of a feather. With great care, she pulled the arrow from the quiver and set it horizontally on top of the groove in the wood.

"That's good," Fai said. "Now make sure the bowstring is touching the little groove in the back of the arrow and pull the string back. Be careful not to let go, or you might scrape some skin off your fingers."

_That sounds painful,_ she thought, drawing the bowstring back. The amount of force required to stretch it was much greater than she'd expected, and she could only pull it back a couple of inches before her weak muscles forced her to ease up. The taut thread returned to its normal position. "I'm not strong enough."

"The strength will come with practice. Try using your core strength instead of just your arm."

That sounded like the sort of rudimentary information any warrior ought to know, and she cursed herself for not thinking of it. Even worse, she didn't know how to draw strength from her core. _You've been pampered too long, _some part of her said. _You have no idea how to get along in the real world. _

"Don't lose your stance," Fai said gently.

"Sorry."

Fai smiled at her. "Don't worry about a thing, Sakura-chan. I'm sure you'll get it soon."

She wished she felt that confident. She moved back to the stance Fai had showed her half an hour ago.

"Feet parallel," he reminded her. Her face reddened as she obeyed. "That's just right. Now pull back on the string again."

She did as he said, getting another inch this time. She still wasn't anywhere near the full draw length of the bow when Fai told her to release the arrow. She lifted her fingers away from the fletching and let it loose, aiming for the wine stain on the towel Yuka had given her. The arrow missed the target completely, even at the short range, and sailed into the trees beyond. Sakura winced.

"That's okay. Just pick another arrow and try again."

Breathing shakily from exertion and failure, she pulled another arrow from the quiver on her back and lined it up as Fai had showed her. Her eyes flashed over to him for guidance, and he nodded. Summoning strength from her torso instead of her arms, she brought the arrow back a few inches and aimed, trying to adjust according to the direction the other arrow had gone.

"Go ahead," Fai said. She released the arrow. This time, it actually hit the target, piercing the lower right corner of the ratty towel. Far from a fatal shot, but it was an improvement.

She tried three more times, enough to make her arms tremble with exertion. When Fai said they were done practicing, her quiver was still half full. "We can work on it later tonight, if you want," he said, pulling two arrows from the makeshift target and handing them to her. She put it back in her quiver and moved into the trees, looking for the ones that had missed altogether. She found two buried in the ground a few feet behind her target, and one dangling from a leafy branch. "That's all of them, I think."

Fai smiled at her, then turned, looking up the path. "Hey, Kuro-pon! Are you ready to go?"

The ninja made an exasperated noise. "I've been ready for an hour. Let's get this over with." Mokona popped out of his shirt, prompting him to jump. "Gah! When the hell—"

The white creature pointed. "The feather is that way."

Sakura smiled and half-ran down the path, tripping over her feet in her haste. The dirt path scuffed up her palms, leaving them raw, but she managed not to damage her weapon as she fell.

"You okay, Sakura-chan?"

She looked back, smiling to show she was okay. "I'm fine. Let's go."

Behind her, the ninja grumbled about her energy level. Truthfully, she wasn't eager to put herself in danger, but to restore at least some of what Syaoran has lost. _There must be so many beautiful things he's forgotten, _she thought, slowing a bit so the others could catch up to her. _All the places he's traveled, all the friends he's made, plus basic skills and short-term memory. It's a lot to lose. _

The sun was just falling beneath the horizon. Having lived in a desert all her life, Sakura expected the temperature to drop a good forty degrees within the hour. _I should've brought something warmer, _she thought, wrapping her cloak around her. This world was generally a bit colder than she was used to, and with the sun setting, she was sure the temperature would go from cool to uncomfortable in a hurry.

They walked for almost two hours, but the temperature only dropped about ten degrees. _Maybe it's because there's so much water here, _she thought. _Water's more resistant to temperature changes, at least according to the scholars. And Syaoran said once that the desert varied in its daily temperature more than any other climate. _She frowned, realizing Syaoran wouldn't remember telling her that. _He'll never remember me at all, if that was really how Yuuko-san took our relationship. As far as he knows, the first time he saw my face was in Ookami-kuni, with the wolves. _

She realized she'd slowed when she heard the other's footsteps close behind her. By reflex, her face turned back to look at them.

Mokona was leaning out of Fai's shirt, having evidently found a safer perch than the ninja's shoulder. Her ears were flat against her back, her features twisted in focus. Sakura kept walking, guessing that the direction Mokona faced was probably the direction to Syaoran's feather. _I have to get it back for him, no matter what. _

"We're getting close," Mokona said after a while. Sakura renewed her efforts to keep her eyes open. This time, she wanted to be the first to see the feather. She ran around a bend in the path, then yelped as someone slammed into her.

"Sorry," the blond boy said reflexively, shoving past her. Sakura got to her feet, only to be shoved aside by two older men running down the path.

"Get back here, you little runt!" one of them shouted. Sakura wheeled, stunned by the sudden rush of action. She heard Mokona calling out to them.

"It's him! That boy has the feather."

_The boy? _she thought, turning around. The path had scuffed up her knees when they fell, skinning them bloody so that when she walked, the chilly air swept across the raw flesh. In Clow, she would've been immediately tended to by one of the healers, but here, she had no such luxury. She ran off after the strangers, clutching the bow tight in her hands as she fumbled for an arrow. "Stop!"

She turned the corner, and saw the two men tackle the boy, forcing him face-first into the ground. The bulkier man pulled a long coil of what appeared to be rope from his belt and uncurled it as the boy thrashed. When the man lifted his meaty hand in the air, she realized the black coil wasn't a rope, but a whip. "_Stop_," she commanded. The man paid her no heed, bringing the whip down so it struck the blond boy across the shoulders. Blood spattered across the path as the boy let loose a wordless shriek.

Two rocks flew through the air, faster than her eyes could track them. They hit each of the thugs in the temple, causing them to recoil. "Let's not have any more of that," Fai said, tossing another stone in the air as a threat. He wasn't smiling.

Sakura ran over to the blond boy and knelt down beside him. "Are you—" The words froze on her tongue as he looked up. _Impossible. _"Yukito-san?"

The bespectacled boy flinched. "How do you know my name?"

_He doesn't know me, _she realized. "I—"

"Hey. Who the hell are you people?"

She turned toward the speaker. It was the thickset man with the whip. A surge of anger rushed through her. "Who are _you_?" she demanded, stalking over to them. "And how can you be so cruel?"

"Back off, brat."

She lifted the bow up into the proper position and set an arrow on the little notch. "I can put an arrow through your eye at twenty meters," she lied, injecting false confidence into the words in the hopes that would make them sound more convincing. "You don't want to know what I can do at three."

The bulky man scoffed, but his thinner friend glanced at the bow with apprehension. "Hey, Ryon, maybe we should—"

"Hell no. We're not leaving the runt until we get that magic feather back."

Sakura pulled the bowstring back as far as her weak muscles would allow. "Get _out _of here."

"Tell that little pest to return the feather to us."

"No."

The bigger one made a move toward her, and she fired her arrow high up into the air. It sailed through the branches, showering them with leaves. The skinny one lurched back, shocked by the display, and even the more violent one backed off when she notched another arrow.

"Come _on_, Ryon. Before we get shot."

The man with the whip hesitated a moment longer as she pulled the bowstring back. "Next time we come back with a dozen men," he snarled, turning and running back down the path.

Sakura lowered her bow and returned her attention to the man who looked like Yukito. "Are you all right?"

He sat up and let one hand rest over the shoulder where he'd been whipped. Sakura winced the same moment he did. "I'm all right."

She glanced up at Fai and Kurogane, hoping one of them had some idea what to do. Fai stepped forward. "We need to take him back with us to get that treated, otherwise it could get infected." He gave her a meaningful look, and she nodded to say she understood.

_We have to get Syaoran's feather back, too, _she thought, helping the blond man up. His boyish features and delicate bone structure had initially led her to believe he was her age, but now that she got a good look at him, she could see he was at least a few years older. _He looks just like Yukito-san, but he doesn't know me. How can that be? _

"How did you know my name?" he asked, eyes tight with pain.

She bit her lip, not sure how to answer.

"She recognized you from town," Fai said, returning with the arrow she'd shot into the air. "She must've overheard your name when you were talking to someone. Our Sakura-chan never forgets people's names."

"Yeah," she said weakly, draping Yukito's arm over her shoulders and helping him up the path. Fai dropped the arrow in her quiver.

"What the hell did you do that made them chase you?" Kurogane demanded, crossing his arms out in front of him. Sakura opened her mouth to tell him this wasn't the time, but Yukito answered before she could.

"Well, you see, I stole something from them."

"Stole something?" _The Yukito I know would never steal anything. But maybe they aren't the same people, if they're in different worlds. _"Why?"

The blond's eyes dropped, as if he were ashamed. "Because my brother is dying."


	11. Whip Marks

Chapter Eleven

They made it to the spa without Yukito passing out. Mai nearly had a panic attack when they dragged him inside. "Who is he, and what _happened _to him?"

"His name's Yukito," Sakura explained, easing him down into one of the chairs in the waiting area. She and Kurogane had switched off supporting his delicate frame during their long walk, an arrangement which had made the whole ordeal a lot easier on her. Even so, her back ached with the effort, and her breath came in labored gasps. "He was running from these two men, and one them pulled out a whip and . . ." She choked on her words and gestured helplessly to the man's bloody shoulder.

"Yuka, go get some bandages from the back," Mai commanded, abandoning her post at the reception desk. When she reached them, she lifted the damaged flap of Yukito's sleeve to examine the damage. She called to Yuka again. "Bring some antiseptic and salve, too." She turned back to them. "Who attacked him?"

"There were two men," Sakura said. "One of them was really big, and the other was skinny, and they were running after him like they wanted to kill him."

Fai tilted his head up to look at the ceiling. "The one guy called the big one Ryon, didn't he?"

Mai looked up sharply. "Ryon? As in, Ryon and Roy? _Those _thugs?"

Sakura nodded. "And Ryon had a whip that must've been twice as long as he was tall, and he used it to hurt Yukito-san." She made another helpless gesture toward the bloody flap of skin.

The dark-haired girl turned to Yuka, who was returning with the medical supplies. "Bring some old towels for me. We don't want blood on the chairs." Mai unscrewed the cap of a small tube, revealing the translucent paste within. She rubbed it into Yukito's wound, every movement deliberate. The blond moaned in pain.

"Do you know them from somewhere?" Fai asked. "Those thugs, I mean."

Mai glared at the laceration, as if the object of her hatred was somehow contained in the wound. "They used to come here and play pranks at our spa. At first, it seemed harmless enough. Kid stuff, you know. They were too old for that kind of thing, but there wasn't much we could do about it. But one night, they took it too far, and assaulted an old man in the bath. There was blood everywhere, and the man they beat up had to go to the hospital for internal bleeding. We couldn't get a reliable customer for months." A wrinkle formed between her eyebrows as she unrolled the gauze. "Next time they showed up, I had them arrested for trespassing."

"Looks like it didn't work," Kurogane muttered.

"We have to stop them," Sakura said.

The ninja sighed. "You know if you go around helping every beaten dog you see, we'll never leave this world."

She looked up sharply. "What are you _saying_? We have to help him!"

"We have a job to do."

"It can wait a few days." She gritted her teeth, keeping her shoulders square. Some part of her knew that if the ninja intended to hold his ground, he would eventually get his way. "Please," she whispered, eyes dropping to the floor. "We have to."

The room had gone almost silent. The ninja sighed. "Fine. What do I care? So long as it doesn't delay us too much longer."

"Thank you," she said fervently, turning her attention back to the Yukito look-alike. Mai had finished applying salve, and was now wrapping bandages around his shoulder.

"Will you really go looking for them?" Mai asked, looking up at Kurogane. Apparently, she'd decided he was the leader of the group. _I haven't even thought about that, _Sakura thought, doing her best to give Yukito-san a comforting glance. _But I suppose someone needs to take charge, wherever we're going. I've got royal blood, but . . . _

Yukito spoke up suddenly. "Is there any way I could go now? My shoulder is feeling better, truly."

Sakura's eyes flashed to the others, then back to the blond. "Um, actually . . . We've sort of been looking for that feather you have." She let the words hang in the air for a moment, hoping Yukito would produce the feather without her having to ask directly.

He looked away. "I'm sorry, but I also need it. For my brother."

"You mentioned that before," Fai said. "What happened to him?"

"Several weeks ago, Touya Onii-san fell ill."

Sakura choked back a gasp when she heard her older brother's name. _But—But Yukito and Touya aren't related in Clow! How could they be brothers here? _

"The doctors said his prognosis was poor. They thought he'd be dead before the week was over. Just when everything seemed hopeless, a great clap of thunder split the sky open, and the feather drifted down so it was resting over his heart. His fever broke right away, and some of the color came back to his face. It was as if the gods themselves had granted him the means to survive." He looked up, as if he could see the sky beyond the ceiling.

"Then why aren't you with him now?" Kurogane asked. _I think that's the first time I've ever heard him ask a question without yelling, _Sakura thought.

"That's where the difficulty comes in. I knew from the start the feather was powerful. In the wrong hands, it could likely cause great harm." He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe anyone would use it for such purposes. "Somehow, Ryon and Roy found out about it. I knew them from a few other . . . encounters, I suppose you could call them."

Yukito frowned, a strange expression on his youthful face. "Touya Onii-san might have been able to fend them off, if he hadn't still been ill, but I'm not as strong as him, so when Ryon threatened me, I gave them the feather."

Sakura frowned in confusion. "So you don't have it?"

"Oh, I have it. After they left, I disguised myself and followed them back to their household. When they fell asleep, I slipped in through the window and searched the house for the feather. I couldn't find it anywhere, and I thought maybe they'd stashed it somewhere else when I hadn't been looking, but then I realized Ryon probably still had it on him. I snuck into his room and dug through his bag looking for it." A deep blush crept into his cheeks. "I'd just found it when Ryon woke up."

"And you've been running ever since," Kurogane cut in.

The blond looked down at his feet. "I meant to get back to Touya. I don't know how he's fared without the feather nearby, but if it helped him before, it might help him now."

"That's quite the story," Mai muttered, shaking her head as she waltzed back to the reception desk.

"I'm sorry," Yukito said, directing his attention to Sakura. She looked back at him as steadily as she could. "But I can't return the feather to you."

Her shoulders sagged, thoughts flitting back to Syaoran. They couldn't afford to lose a single feather while he remained in this condition. His irregular sleep schedule and short-term memory loss had already given her a few panic attacks. If they landed in a more dangerous world after this, his condition might end up killing him.

"How about we all go and take a look at your brother," Fai suggested. Kurogane made a sound of annoyance behind him.

Yukito glanced up. "The doctors said there's nothing that can be done for him."

"Maybe there is," Sakura interrupted. "Back in my wo—country—I received a little bit of training in healing. I don't know how much it will help, but it's worth a try."

"You would do that for a total stranger?"

She nodded fiercely, though this man was less of a stranger to her than he believed. _In another world, you taught me about magic. Maybe I can use my magic to help you in this dimension._

The ninja crossed his arms in front of his chest and gave an exasperated sigh. "Might as well go now so we can get to the next world sooner."

Sakura nodded. "Is that okay with you, Yukito-san?"

The bespectacled man stood up, moving carefully with his wounded shoulder. "That would be very kind of you."

A new voice pierced the conversation. "Can I come too?"

Everyone turned, their eyes flying to the speaker. Sakura ran over to him, extending an arm as if to stop him. "Syaoran, you're not strong enough to walk that far."

His head tilted to the side in a puppy-dog gesture. "But all of you are helping me retrieve my memories. Shouldn't I try to help, too?"

She bit her lip. "Maybe, but—"

"Let him come," Kurogane said. "See what happens."

_See what happens? _she thought. _He's going to pass out—that's what's going to happen. _

"Can I please go?" Syaoran asked. For the first time, Sakura saw a hint of real emotion in his expression. It wore down her defenses faster than anything else that had happened since the masked men had invaded Clow. Her eyes dropped to the floor.

"Okay. Let's go."

Fai handed her the bow and quiver he'd been carrying. She slung the cylindrical basket over her shoulder and moved the bow to her left hand. The others fell in position behind her as she gestured for Yukito to lead the way.


	12. Healers

Chapter Twelve

The path to Yukito's house was long and winding.

"How much farther is it?" Kurogane asked as they reached another switchback.

"Another half a mile," the blond man said, glancing back at the ninja. Behind his glasses, his pupils had dilated with fear.

Sakura examined this Yukito's face again, trying to find some difference than set him apart from Clow Kingdom's High Priest. This man was perhaps a year or two younger, but identical in all his features. His skin was the same porcelain shade of the man Sakura had known, and his eyes were the same, pale shade of brown. _They really are two versions of the same person, _she thought as Yukito turned his head away. _The same face. The same soul, even. But different circumstances shaped them into different people._

Sakura felt someone's eyes on the back of her neck and glanced back to see Syaoran watching her. She waited a moment, expecting him to look away. Commoners were seldom permitted to maintain eye contact with royalty, and Syaoran's inherent politeness had kept him from looking directly at her even after she'd told him it was okay.

His gaze didn't waver.

After a few seconds, Sakura felt the warmth rising up to her cheeks. _Syaoran never stares at me this long. Not since he first came to Clow, when he didn't know the customs. _She bit her lip, trying to decide whether she should correct the behavior, since he likely didn't remember enough to know he was overstepping a boundary.

_But he doesn't _look _like he wants to say anything, _she thought, wavering. _He just looks curious. Like a little kid. _Her lips slipped into a frown. Syaoran's expression shifted, eyes dropping to the ground.

Sakura returned her attention to the path in front of them. As the moss-cloaked trees gave way to open air, a house appeared. It had the same strange, paper walls as the Inn had, and a similar, sloping roof. The house was smaller than the Inn, but larger than the clay house Syaoran had shared with Fujitaka-san in Clow. _I wonder if he remembers that. I should ask. _

"It's not much," Yukito said, a gentle smiling dawning on his face. The smile reminded her so sharply of the High Priest that she almost forgot this was a different person. "But here we are."

"It's pretty," Syaoran said unexpectedly. As Sakura examined the exterior in its entirety, she realized he was right. Suspended from the edge of the roof were flowerpots, overflowing with white and yellow blossoms of different shapes. Ivy clung to the side of the building, rising up from a lovingly tended patch of dirt. In the foreground, a pond had been carved into the ground in the shape of a teardrop and outfitted with a fountain. Simple decorations, all blending together in a picture of harmony.

"It _is _pretty," she sighed.

"Thank you," Yukito said, blushing. "But it's Touya's garden, not mine."

Sakura blinked. Any notion that the Touya this Yukito had been referring to was connected to her brother vanished from her mind.

"Let's get this over with," Kurogane said.

"Ah, right. This way."

They walked up to the shoji screen and waited for Yukito to pull it open for them. "You can leave your shoes at the door."

The request seemed odd to her, but she remembered Syaoran had once told her that other countries had all kinds of strange traditions, so she went along with it. By the time she'd stripped her shoes off, everyone else was already inside.

Yukito flitted from room to room, peering through narrow openings in the rice paper walls. The lighthearted smile of a few minutes ago had yielded to a look of concern. Behind his spectacles, his eyes narrowed.

"Don't worry," Sakura said. "I'm sure Touya-san will be fine."

He readjusted his glasses. "I will never allow him to die."

Sakura thought of the relationship between her own brother and the High Priest. They'd been friends for so long, it had seemed as if nothing could separate them. _Is it the same way in this world? _she wondered, following the bespectacled man into Touya's room.

Her brother—that was how she labeled him despite knowing they were not related in this world—looked over at their entrance. His cheeks blazed with an unhealthy glow, and his eyes were glassy instead of aloof. "Took you long enough," he muttered when he saw Yukito's face. "I've been burning up all day here."

The blond man skittered forward. "Sorry. I had to get the feather back from Ryon and Roy."

Touya arched one eyebrow. "Yeah?"

Yukito pulled the feather from his cloak and laid it across Touya's chest. The pale brown fibrils that made up the body of the feather rippled, bending the flexible spine. _It moves like it's alive, _she thought, unable to look away. Part of her wanted to be selfish, and snatch the feather away right then so she could restore Syaoran's memories and move on with this journey. The rest of her was locked in rapt attention as the unhealthy flush disappeared from her brother's face.

"And who's this?" Touya asked. The brief contact with the feather had made him more lucid, but his eyes were still hazy as he looked at her.

"I'm Sakura. I'm here to see if I can help you."

He laughed. "And you're what? A healer? Look, the doctors already told me—"

"Onii-san, be nice to our guests," Yukito chided him. The name threw Sakura for a moment, and she reminded herself that, in this world at least, the two of them were related. _It's so strange. They look nothing alike. _

"Guests? There's more than one?"

Sakura went over to the bed and took Touya's hand, ignoring the feverish temperature of his skin. "We come from a distant country. We may have methods not known to this land."

Touya smirked. "Worth a shot, I guess. I mean, the magic feather seemed to work pretty well, after all." He chuckled softly, as if he didn't quite believe in magic.

_If he doesn't, things might get complicated. _She wasn't as well-versed in history as Syaoran had been, but she knew there had been countries in her world where people had been accused of witchcraft and burned for it. _I don't know what kind of world this is. If they frown on magic, it might be dangerous to help Touya. _

"Yukito-san, will you go make some tea?" she asked, keeping her voice neutral. "I'm not usually up this late, and I need something to help me stay awake."

The bespectacled man rose, tucking the feather into his cloak again. "Of course. Just a moment."

He swept out of the room, leaving the door open. Sakura glanced back. No one was watching her, though she could see the outline Kurogane's shoulder from where she sat. He seemed tense, like a guard dog. _I have to get this done before Yukito-san returns. _She lifted her hands over Touya's chest, just where the feather had been lying moments ago. "Just relax."

Touya closed his eyes and sunk deeper into the sheets. "Sure, brat."

She fidgeted a little at the nickname. Her brother had often called Syaoran a brat, even once he'd outgrown any childish tendencies. _And he didn't have many to start with. _

Sakura tried to remember what Yukito had managed to teach her before she'd left Clow. Using magic was a complex balance between body and soul, difficult to use without sufficient background knowledge. Magic users in her world were few and far between, their knowledge spread unevenly between them. Yukito had certainly been the most skilled magician for many miles, able to transport two people to Yuuko-san, but even so, his teachings had been limited.

So she did what she could, channeling energy from her heart and lungs down her arms. It hummed across her skin, culminating in her fingertips. Touya stiffened as the tingling sensation traveled across his chest and into his body. She could almost imagine the ripples of magic abolishing the lingering sickness that had taken hold of him. _Let this be enough, _she thought. _It's all I have._

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The magic bled out of her fingertips.

The skin on the back of her neck prickled; someone was watching her. Sakura did her best to ignore it, assuming it was Syaoran again. It was his feather—he had every reason to wonder about the measures she was taking to get it back. _He's probably curious. He always has been. _Her mind drifted to the boy who'd come to Clow, not knowing how to smile or laugh, but how to ask questions. Always curious, but so solemn. _And so kind, once he opened up a little._

Her thoughts had pulled her away from her healing spell. She refocused her efforts, still ignoring the eyes on her back. If she healed Touya, Yukito would almost certainly give her the feather. _And maybe there's a chance Syaoran will remember me after all._

Behind her, someone's clothing brushed up against the paneled walls. The floorboards creaked as someone else's weight shifted. Sakura heard the faintest footfall—barely recognizable as someone's shoe hitting the dirt path leading up to the house—before the bedroom window shattered.


	13. Near Misses

Chapter Thirteen

Sakura withdrew her hand from Touya's chest and brought it to her bow. Her right hand sought an arrow from her quiver, but by the time she found one, the house overflowed with enemies.

In the living room, a second window shattered. Sakura flinched from the sound, almost loosing her arrow into one of her attackers' abdomens. Her mind raced, trying to process what had happened. Before she realized who was attacking, someone had grabbed the bow from her arms. "Hey—"

A fist smashed into the side of her jaw, and the man threw her face-first into the wall. A high-pitched ring pierced her eardrums, drowning out all other sounds.

"Thought you'd seen the last of us, didn't you?" a voice snarled. Sakura recognized the voice of the man who'd whipped Yukito.

"That hurts!"

Ryon yanked her back and slammed her into the wall again. "You should've left well enough alone. Then maybe you wouldn't be in this predica—" The words cut off, interrupted by the distinct sound of flesh hitting flesh. Sakura dropped to her knees, fingers fumbling for her only weapon.

"Here," a new voice said. She looked up to see a pair of crimson eyes boring down at her.

"Kurogane-san!"

He thrust something in her direction, and she reached out for it reflexively. When her fingertips brushed against smooth wood, she realized it was her bow.

Kurogane turned his attention to a pair of approaching figures. "Don't hesitate," he told her, lunging forward. His fist smashed into one of the men's noses, sending the skinny man reeling. "You have a weapon now. Use it."

"R-Right." She found her quiver of arrows and slung it over her shoulder, pulling one bolt from the basket and resting it on the groove above the handhold. As she did so, Kurogane brought one of the thugs to the ground and planted a foot between his shoulder blades. A murderous grin split the ninja's face.

Sakura twirled, searching the room for other enemies. A few feet away, Touya struggled to sit up. "Stay down," she commanded. "You're in no shape to fight."

The teenager swung his legs over the edge of the bed and smirked. "And miss a chance to pummel the guy who hurt my brother? I don't think so." He cracked his knuckles and sauntered over to Ryon. The fat man was just getting back to his knees after the blow he'd suffered. Touya grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked the monster's head back, eliciting a thin wail.

Sakura ran into the living room, pulling her bowstring back as far as she could in preparation to fire.

In the living room, six or seven men in ratty clothes swarmed around Fai. The wizard grinned, though not as fiercely as Kurogane had a moment ago. "Ah, Sakura-chan. It looks like you made it out okay."

She flinched as another fist came within half an inch of the magician's face. "Fai-san!"

"Syaoran-kun's out back with Yukito-san."

Hearing Syaoran's name sent her back into a panic. She darted to the nearest door, wasting a precious half a second figuring out where the handle was. The cool night air cut into her skin. "Syaoran!"

The dull thud of a foot smashing into someone's abdomen sent another pang of panic through her. She staggered forward, toward the source of the sound. "Syaoran!"

The dark night made it hard to distinguish between friend and foe. The only thing she could see was the shifting mass of arms and legs where Syaoran and Yukito fought against Ryon's friends. Sakura lifted her bow, pulling the string back as far as she could. "Stop it! Everybody _stop_."

Two men peeled off from the group at the sound of her voice. She saw the flash of their white teeth in the moonlight. _Like the wolves in Ookami-kuni, _she thought irrationally. "_Stop_."

They didn't stop. She pulled the bowstring back another inch, her muscles fueled by adrenaline. Her hands shook, making her bow tremble. Her voice turned hoarse. "Stop. Just stop."

Her bowstring relaxed half an inch as the strain wore on her muscles. The two men who'd flaked off from the group continued toward her, seeming to move in slow motion. "Stop . . ."

The bow shivered in her hands. Her sense of distance seemed oddly distorted. The men moved as if they were approaching her, but suddenly, they were far away, well out of range of her bow. She blinked, trying to get over the disorientation.

"Shoot, damn it," someone snarled behind her. She lifted her bow half an inch, taking a deep breath to steady her trembling hands. It must not have worked, because when she let the arrow loose, it missed by over a yard.

Her legs crumpled under her, going numb from the stress of the battle. She heard a low curse behind her, followed by the words, "Do I have to do _everything_?"

A figure rushed out from behind her. She was just barely cognizant enough to recognize Kurogane as he stooped down to pick up a handful of stones from a small rock garden. He took what appeared to be a fighting stance and chucked them one at a time at the enemy. Sakura watched, recording every moment like a series of photographs in her mind. Two stones struck the nearest man's forehead. He hit the ground, landing like a discarded sack of potatoes. Another stone struck the next man, neutralizing the threat directed at her.

Kurogane reached for more projectiles. He was just about to throw them when one of the thugs threw Syaoran against a tree. The sound of bark splintering against the impact jerked Sakura out of her silence. "Syaoran!"

Yukito threw a glance toward the brunette. His glasses were cracked in one lens from his role in the fight, and new bruises deformed his face. Even if he hadn't been preoccupied with his own fight, he would've been unable to reach Syaoran before the thugs hurt him.

Her hands moved automatically, tightening around her bow and angling it so it was lined up with the thug's spine. She snatched an arrow from her quiver and positioned it on the bow. Beside her, Kurogane-san chucked another stone at the man. It hit him in the shoulder, but didn't deter his assault. "Damn it," the ninja hissed.

Sakura pulled back on the bowstring, her movements as smooth as Fai's had been during his demonstration, if less powerful. Some part of her subconscious adjusted her aim, and then she loosed the arrow. It flexed as it flew. Sakura heard the whistle of air being sliced apart, then the impact as the arrowhead embedded itself in the papery bark of a birch tree, three feet from the tree Syaoran was pinned against. His attacker glanced over, more startled by the arrow than he'd been by the flying rocks. His distraction gave Syaoran a precious second, which he used to bring his leg up. Syaoran's foot smashed into the man's chin hard enough to rattle his teeth.

A great silence descended around the house after the man dropped to the ground.

"Hyuu," Fai sang, peering out of the door with one hand on his forehead, like he was blocking out the sun. "That was really close, Sakura-chan."

She glanced up, panting with exertion. Her legs felt like overcooked noodles. Her hands had started shaking again.

"Yukito!" Touya yelled, running out of the house. The collar of his shirt was spattered with blood, but none of it appeared to be his own.

"Touya, are you okay?"

"You reckless moron," Touya snarled, pulling a small white cloth from his shirt pocket. He dabbed the square of fabric against a small cut on the blond's face, the gesture surprisingly gentle for his tone. "You're no good at fighting. Why would you do that?" He plucked Yukito's glasses off his face, holding them up to examine the cracked lens.

Yukito smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. You seem to be feeling better, though."

"Honestly. It's like you have no self-preservation instinct at all."

"Oh, don't fret over little stuff like that." Yukito took his glasses back, closing one eye to adjust to the broken lens. He walked over to their group, shadowed by his brother and Syaoran. He brought the feather out from his cloak. "This is yours, isn't it?"

Sakura released her hold on her bow and cradled the delicate brown feather between her palms. "It's Syaoran's," she mumbled.

"Ah. Well, Touya seems much better now, so we have no need of it. Please, take it as our thanks for taking down Ryon's gang. I don't think he'll be bothering us anymore."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak when her body was still trembling. She staggered over to Syaoran. His cheeks were flushed with exertion, and carried more emotion than she'd seen from him since his feathers had scattered. "This will help you regain your memories," she whispered. He gave no reaction to the news, watching her with a wary look.

Sakura moved the feather closer to his chest, unfurling her fingers when she felt the faint resonance of the connected magic. The air warped around his chest. The fibrous object disintegrated, throwing off glittering flashes as it merged with Syaoran's body.

He dropped as if he'd been hit by lightning. Sakura screeched, hands flying up to her mouth as she recoiled in shock. "Syaoran!"

He didn't stir. Her heart hammered against her ribs. _What did I do wrong? Should I have waited until he was sleeping, like in Ookami-kuni? _She dove to her knees and pressed two fingertips to his carotid artery, to make sure she hadn't killed him, or sent his heart into a dangerous arrhythmia. His pulse seemed fast, but not erratic. She nudged his shoulder. "Syaoran? Are you okay?"

"It's not like he hit his head," Kurogane said. "He'll be fine."

Sakura glanced up, oddly comforted by the gruff words. As her heart decelerated, her hands twined around Syaoran's. _He's warmer than he was before, _she thought, relieved.

"If you want, you all can stay with us until he wakes up," Yukito offered. Touya flashed him a look, but said nothing.

"Can we?" Sakura asked. "Truly?"

"You helped us a lot tonight. It's only fair we give you a place to rest. And besides, I never got you that tea you asked for." Yukito smiled.

"We should get going," Kurogane said.

Fai draped an arm over the ninja's shoulder, earning a look that would've made Sakura's legs give out with terror had she been on the receiving end of it. "Come on, Kuro-pon. It'll be just like a sleepover."

"Why the hell would I want to have a sleepover with _you_?"

Fai turned to Mokona in mock sorrow. "Kuro-wan doesn't love me," he cried.

Sakura watched their antics, fighting the urge to smile. Eventually, though, a giggle broke through her lips. Fai gave her a radiant smile, while Kurogane rolled his eyes. "We can stay, but I want to leave at first light," the ninja said.

Sakura turned her attention back to Syaoran, smiling faintly. _With this feather, will you remember me? _she wondered, running her fingers through his hair. _Or have you lost all memory of me forever? _

"Here," Kurogane said, extending a hand. Uncertainly, she took it. He pulled her to her feet. "Go inside. I'll bring the boy in."

She blinked, stunned. "Thank you."

"Yeah, well . . . Don't get used to it. Like I said, I'm not about to stick my neck out for you, even if you are a princess."

She nodded. "I understand." Sakura retrieved her bow, running back toward the woods to retrieve her arrow. The man Syaoran had kicked was still unconscious. _I knew Syaoran could fight, but even without most of his memories, he's so much more useful than I am. _She pulled the arrow out of the tree, almost falling backwards when it finally came loose. She checked it for damage, then stowed it in her quiver. _I couldn't hit anyone with this even if I tried. _She remembered her trembling hands, the distortion in her depth perception.

"We'll work on your accuracy tomorrow," Fai said. _Am I that easy to read? _she wondered.

"Okay." Stepping over a fallen foe, she made her way toward the couch. Judging from the size of this house, there probably wasn't much for guest rooms. _Syaoran should get a bed after all he's been through tonight, _she thought, curling up and closing her eyes. The others shuffled in behind her, moving their unconscious foes out as they passed. _I can't even help with the cleanup because I'm too weak. _She clutched her bow closer to her chest, the only bit of security that remained to her now. _I can't do anything._


	14. Tears

Chapter Fourteen

It was the first time she'd ever woken up sore.

As she surfaced from the haze of forgotten dreams, the protests in her muscles began to make themselves known. She'd fallen asleep easily after last night's battle, relieved they'd found the feather in this world. The soreness itself had actually lulled her into a deeper state of rest, her body demanding a break after the strain of the night.

Now, the dull ache pulled her from her slumber. A deep throbbing along her jaw prompted her to lift a hand to her face. At the lightest touch, a jolt of pain shot through her head. She vaguely remembered Ryon punching her before slamming her into a wall. That likely accounted for most of the damage. _A little bit higher and he could've given me a concussion, _she thought, sitting up.

Her arms ached from pulling the bowstring too far, and the rest of her muscles had turned to rigid cords along her body. Though she felt a rush of vertigo when she stood, she decided she was well enough to get up and walk around.

"First light" apparently meant "whenever everyone gets around to waking up" because when she peered out the window, the sun was high in the sky, and any trace of Ryon's gang had vanished. Kurogane had crashed on one of the beds in the guestroom. Syaoran slept dreamily on the other. Yukito slept on the floor in front of Touya's bed. The only person who was awake besides herself was Fai.

"Good morning, Sakura-chan," he said. His voice was bright but soft, so as not to wake the others. "You're looking better."

_How did I look when I went to bed? _she wondered, trying to imagine how bad her face looked now. She rubbed her eye, wincing.

"There's a bathroom just past Touya-san's room, if you want to clean up."

She nodded, the movement sending another spark of pain across her face. She wondered if her jaw had fractured, then decided it would probably hurt even worse if it had.

When she reached the bathroom, the first thing she did was take stock of her appearance. The bruise her fingers had only just perceived was black and bulging. It disfigured half her face, spreading from her chin to the bottom of her eye. A patch of dried blood marred her swollen lower lip. But the bruising on her face was the worst of her injuries.

She found a washcloth in one of the cabinets and wet it down in the sink. Once it was damp, she went to work wiping the brown crust of her blood(she thought it was hers, anyway)off her face. Every swipe of the washcloth intensified the ache, until her eyes burned with tears.

When she was done, she went back to the living room. Fai handed her a wooden bowl filled with some creamy liquid. "What's this?"

"In my world, they call it oatmeal. I've added some sugar so it won't taste quite so bland. Try it."

She lifted a spoonful of the gray mush up to her lips and tasted it. It was still bland, but the texture made it easy to eat with her injuries, so she didn't say anything. _Even though it was my decision to look for Syaoran's feathers, everyone here is already treating me like I'm some child to be taken care of. _She sat down on the couch, since it was the only place to rest in the small house, and ate. A few minutes later, Fai came to sit beside her, bearing a bowl of the same thing.

"Feeling up to a bit of target practice?" he asked.

Sakura's eyes flitted to her bow, leaning against the edge of the couch. "Sure."

They ate quickly. Fai commented on the thin flower vases adorning the countertops. Sakura agreed that they were pretty, without much enthusiasm.

When they were done, they went outside for target practice. Sakura stretched out her stiff arms, wincing as the torn muscles tightened. When her body felt more limber, she picked up her bow.

"Let's shoot for that tree," Fai decided, pointing to the tree she'd hit last night trying to fend off their attackers. Though she'd missed her target, the arrow had pierced the center of the tree, leaving her a decent bull's-eye to aim for.

They worked for about an hour. Fai supervised, giving her little snippets of advice every few minutes. Sakura did her best to follow his commands, but struggled to stay focused as the anxiety tied her stomach in knots.

_I didn't get time to check on Syaoran last night. I should have. The feather knocked him unconscious as soon as he absorbed it. He could've had any number of unchecked injuries he hadn't gotten a chance to tell us about yet. _Her next arrow flew wide, hitting a tree far to the left of the one she was aiming at.

"That's okay," Fai assured her. "You're still getting used to the bow."

"Sure." She picked the last arrow out of her quiver and prepared to fire. As she did so, images of last night's battle flashed through her mind. That moment where her vision had gone strange, distorting her perception of distance. _If Kurogane-san hadn't been there to help, I could've been killed. Or Syaoran could have, or Yukito-san. Even if I was a decent shot, I'm still too weak to fire when I should. _

She aligned her bow where she thought it should go, adjusting from her last awful shot. Her fingers traced the bowstring, still only half-drawn, then released the arrow. It flew a foot to the right of the mark, scraping the bark from the edge of the tree before falling to the ground.

"You're getting better," Fai said, smiling at her. Dappled sunlight danced across his pale face. Fair skin was considered a mark of prestige in Clow, where only the rich could afford to stay out of the desert sun, but even within the castle walls, she had never seen anyone so pale. _There are so many things I don't know. Maybe fair skin is normal in his country. _

"I'm going to go pick up my arrows," she said, leaning the bow against the paper walls of the house and going over to the target. Twenty arrows stuck out of various places: the ground, other trees, even one about three feet below her intended target, sticking out of an exposed root. She took them all out and examined each for damage. She didn't know what it would take to ruin these arrows, but she suspected a bad shot could do it. _And I'm certainly not a good marksman. _"Can we be done for a while?" she asked, knowing one hour was not nearly enough practice to improve herself, but reluctant to continue when she was so distracted. "I want to check on Syaoran."

A pained smile crossed the wizard's face. "Sure. Kuro-pon is probably awake by now, anyway."

Judging from the lack of response, the ninja either didn't hear or was still asleep. Fai skipped into the house, leaving the door open for her. She slung the quarrel over her shoulder and went inside.

"Good morning, Hime-sama," a timid voice greeted her. Her head shot up so fast that another jolt of pain ran up her jaw.

"Syaoran, you're awake!"

A startled look flitted across his face, but before she could apologize for her volume, a new voice cut in. "What the hell are you brats making so much noise for?"

"Sorry," they both said at once. Sakura turned toward Syaoran, startled. Back in Clow, they'd been close enough to finish each other's sentences, but now it seemed like a miracle that they could still respond the same way to some things. _Even if he doesn't remember most of his life, he's still Syaoran. _She smiled to herself, not even wincing when the movement pulled at her bruised cheek.

Syaoran looked at her for several seconds, then mirrored her expression.

A blush crept into her cheeks, and she almost lost it right then. The Syaoran she'd known might be gone, but perhaps she could piece him together again. "Did you remember anything interesting?"

His eyes flickered up as he tried to recall whatever memories the feather had returned to him. "I remembered my father, Fujitaka-san, and the house. And also . . ." He hesitated, but her look of hope prompted him to continue. "A tree."

"A tree?"

"A tree shedding pale pink petals over the castle gardens, in Clow."

She stiffened. "A sakura tree."

"Yes. There was someone there with me, but when I turned to look at them, they weren't there. I mean, they _were_, but I couldn't see them or hear them. I just knew someone was there."

_Syaoran was only ever allowed in the castle gardens when I was with him, _Sakura thought, fighting to hold onto her smile. It curdled on her face, and she turned away.

The room had gone quiet after Syaoran's explanation. She heard Fai shift his weight, and Kurogane's soft sigh.

_So that's it then. Yuuko-san said our relationship would never be the same. This is how she decided to do it. _"I'm sure it will come to you eventually."

Syaoran frowned, and she regretted being unable to comfort him. _How terrifying must it be to remember nothing? How strange the world must seem to him. Compared to that, what I have to face is nothing._

He spoke, his voice almost normal for having such little grasp of what was going on. "Thank you. I wouldn't be able to remember anything at all if it wasn't for all of you." He bowed to the entire room, his eyes touching on the three of them in turn. "I'll try not to be a burden to you."

Suddenly, it was too much—the price she'd paid, the memories he'd never regain, his twisted perception that _he _was somehow a burden after taking down an enemy by himself, the way he'd called her _Hime-sama _instead of Sakura. Her teeth buried themselves into her lip, and she half-ran back to the bathroom, pausing only to mumble an excuse.

She'd just closed the door when the tears overflowed. Her hands flew up to her face to smother the sobs building at the back of her throat. Her knees buckled, letting her numb body slide down to the floor. There, she curled up and, for the first time since Ookami-kuni, let herself break down.

_I was so stupid, thinking I could travel dimensions at any lesser price, _she thought, nails digging into her scalp. _Just because I've been pampered all my life, I expected this to be convenient. I'm stupid and useless and I have no place being here. _

Another sob overtook her, and for a time, it took all her concentration to muffle the cries in the folds of her dress. After a while, she wondered why no one had come to check on her. Usually, Yukito or her brother or one of the servants would come to check on her after a few minutes. _Not anymore, _she thought bitterly. _I may be a princess in Clow, but here, I'm just an ordinary girl. And a useless one at that. _

Hot tears ran down her face. Her lungs rattled with every sob.

_I'm not made for this, _she thought. _I'm sorry Syaoran, but I'm just not made for this. I don't know how to help you when I can't even help myself. _She lifted a hand to her bruise and pressed down on the swollen flesh until it throbbed under her fingertips. Then she wiped the tears out of her eyes and got to her feet. Her legs were stiff from being crumpled up.

_No. That's wrong. That's selfish. No matter how much pain it puts me in, this journey is the only thing that can save Syaoran's life. _Her fingers coiled around her bow. _I have to be stronger than this. _

Sakura took a deep breath, tucked the tear-soaked strands of hair behind her ear, and left the bathroom.

The others had gathered in the living room. Syaoran glanced up as she entered, looking worried. She smiled, trying to be positive despite the lingering pain in her heart. He was getting some emotion back. That should make her happy.

Fai looked up at her. His expression seemed to be asking if she was okay. She smiled wider, trying to show him that everything was. His sad smile radiated sympathy.

"Ready to go?" Kurogane asked. It surprised her that he actually looked a bit subdued, too. _Does he pity me? _she wondered, doubting the possibility. Then again, she'd only known these people a few days, and even if the ninja had admitted to killing people, that was no reason to assume he was a heartless monster. _After all, that's what I'm learning to do now, with this bow._

"I'm ready to go." She turned to Yukito and Touya, who were waiting on the edge of the room, wary expressions on their faces. "Thank you for your hospitality. Oh, and if you happen to visit the spa anytime soon, pass on our gratitude to Mai-san."

Yukito's eyes widened behind his broken spectacles. "I will!" he called, as Mokona rose from Fai's shoulder and stretched her wings. "And thank you!"

Sakura nodded in acknowledgment of his thanks as black globs of magic spilled out from the air around them. She watched their faces shift from gratitude to shock.

Before the two could say anything, Sakura landed in a different dimension.


	15. First Meetings

Chapter Fifteen

Sakura slammed into the ground as if she'd been dropped from a second-story balcony. Pain flared up and down her body, the bruises from the last world pulsing even as a series of startled shouts pierced her eardrums. "Ow," she groaned, sitting up and clutching the bruised half of her face.

"What the hell's going on?" someone snarled. If Sakura had been judging by the anger alone, she would've guessed it was Kurogane-san. But the voice was wrong, not as deep as the ninja's.

A hand wrapped around her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. The world tilted up so the sunlight pierced her eyes. She recoiled from the sudden brightness, her hand going automatically to the quiver of arrows on her back. A face filled her vision, chubby and square and _familiar_.

_Didn't I just see you in the last world? _she wondered, moving her arms as far as she could given the iron-hard grip Ryon had on them. She drew the bowstring back, positioning the arrow just as Fai had taught her. "Let go!" she yelled, pointing the tip of the arrow toward the brute's face. He dropped her as if she'd been lit on fire.

"Who the hell are you?" Ryon demanded, his face flushing red as she dropped to the ground and took a shooting stance. "How-"

A pebble smashed into the side of his face, thrown with enough force to leave a bruise. _A bruise to match the one you gave me in the last world, _she thought.

Ryon turned toward the person who'd thrown the pebble. "Chun'yan!"

A girl with sleek black hair stuck her tongue out at Ryon. She had perched herself on top of someone's roof, and her arms were crossed. "Where do you get off, attacking total strangers like that?" the girl demanded.

"I am the son of the _Ryanban_. I can do whatever I want."

Sakura didn't recognize the foreign word, but from Ryon's tone, she guessed whoever he was talking about was of some importance in this town.

The girl named Chun'yan hopped got to her feet, balancing precariously on the slanted roof. "You must be awfully stupid if that's how you're treating our visitors. I bet your aboji is watching you right now, wondering how he ever spawned such a _stupid _son."

"Bitch," Ryon muttered. Another rock sailed through the air, larger than the first. When it hit his shoulder, he recoiled. "You'll regret this, Chun'yan!" He turned and stalked off, passing spilled fruits and broken vegetable stands. Belatedly, Sakura realized their landing had destroyed a good portion of the town market.

The black-haired girl was still yelling. "Run home to your aboji, you big fat coward!"

Ryon looked back once, then sped up, his barrel-like arms swinging around his trunk as he walked. Once he was out of the range of her arrows, Sakura lowered her bow to take stock of her surroundings.

Kurogane and Fai had fallen hard, one or both of them crashing down on a cart full of cabbages and leaving it in shambles. Syaoran alone seemed to have landed on his feet, though he was looking around as if he couldn't quite manage to come to terms with the change in scenery.

"Damn it," Kurogane grumbled, glaring at Mokona. "Be a little more careful where you drop us next time!"

Mokona smiled in such a way that Sakura wondered if their rough landing hadn't been intentional. But there was no time to brood on it because the shopkeepers were bursting with horror at what had befallen their wares.

"This is going to take all day to clean up," one woman cried.

"These are all bruised now," said another man, holding a peach up to the sun to reveal a dark spot on the fruit.

Syaoran picked up an empty, undamaged crate. "I'll help you with that," he said, eyes touching on each shopkeeper before he stooped down to pick up a peach. Sakura bent down and did the same for the cabbages.

"Everyone is so kind," Mokona cheered, poking her head out of Fai's shirt. "Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun are both so nice."

Sakura smiled softly at the white creature, then resumed her cleanup. A few minutes in, just as she was loading the second section of the market stall with produce, a new voice cut in.

"Your clothes are kind of weird."

Sakura looked to see the girl who'd heckled Ryon a few minutes ago, then down at her own clothes. Mud and blood speckled her pink and white cloak after the last world's fight, but it was the bright colors and strange material that stood out here. "We're not from here," she said.

The other girl's face went blank, then exploded to life. She lunged forward and took Sakura's hands. "Then you _must_ be Amen'Osa!"

Sakura cocked her head to the side. "I'm not sure what that means"

"You have to come with me," the girl said, ponytail bouncing as she moved. She towed Sakura away from the marketplace, her arms strong despite her tiny stature.

The others followed her as the child dragged her away. Fai and Syaoran regarded the black-haired girl with curiosity. Kurogane seemed relieved that he didn't have to waste any more time picking up fruit.

The girl finally stopped when they reached a small house on the edge of town. Cracks webbed the shingles, and the roof itself sagged as if weighed down by an unseen force. Flecks of rust covered the door hinges. Paint peeled off the walls in beige shavings.

"This is my house," the girl said, jamming a key into the door and pulling it open for them. "We can talk here. Oh, my name's Chun'yan."

"It's nice to meet you," Sakura said, wondering if it was customary in this country to drag people off the streets and into one's house for a visit. Chun'yan walked across the room and perched herself on an end table. Her black eyes were expectant as she watched them file in.

"So, um, what's this all about?" Sakura asked.

The girl's eyebrows slanted down. The angle wasn't quite sharp enough to denote anger, but there was a definite intensity there. After a few moments of silence, the intensity faded to confusion. "Aren't you here to remove the Ryanban from power?"

Sakura blinked. "The - no. We're just travelers."

"But . . . But how did you break through the Ryanban's wards?" Chun'yan demanded, standing up. Her hands quivered. "You must have powerful magic to pierce the barrier."

Fai smiled a little. "I'm afraid we didn't use any sort of magic to get through a barrier, though we did land rather conveniently inside one."

If the explanation confused her, Chun'yan didn't show it. "So, you're not here to overthrow the Ryanban?"

"Nope," Fai said cheerfully.

For just a split second, Chun'yan looked as if she was about to burst into tears. She looked down, face turning bitter. "So it was too good to be true, after all. Of course. Children like you couldn't be Amen'Osa."

Sakura cocked her head to the side. "You said that word before. What does it mean?"

"Amen'Osa? They're protectors of the people. They keep us from being abused by tyrants like our new Ryanban."

Sakura frowned. "I'm sure they'll come soon to liberate you."

"It's not that simple!" Chun'yan yelled, hands clenching into fists. "That Ryanban just came in and took over our village like we were nothing! Even my Omoni couldn't protect the town, and she was our best shinban."

Sakura started a bit. There had been such fondness and pain in the younger girl's face when she'd mentioned this _Omoni_.

_It could only be someone precious to her, _Sakura thought, trying to make the connection. They'd encountered no communication difficulties until now, but this country was proving rather complex in its terminology. She'd already inferred that the Ryanban was someone of great power, and she could guess from the context of Chun'yan's words that a shinban was some kind of warrior, but the barrage of unfamiliar words was messing with her comprehension. _Syaoran would probably be able to figure it out, _Sakura thought. _If only he remembered enough of his travels._

Fai had evidently been paying more attention to the dark-haired girl, because he spoke a moment later. "And did this Ryanban suddenly become more powerful for no reason?"

"Yeah," Chun'yan said, looking up. "Before he came here, he was just a wandering shinban - and not a powerful one, at that. But then something happened to give him a lot of extra magical power."

Sakura looked up, the gears turning in her head. In Ookami-kuni, the shaman they'd encountered had used Syaoran's feather to increase his magical abilities and control the wolves. And in the last world they'd visited, the feather had been able to keep that world's Touya healthy. _That's it. The feathers amplify magic. _She turned to Fai. "You think this man has one of Syaoran's feathers?"

The blond smiled and nodded. "That would make sense, given what we know about them."

Sakura glanced over at Syaoran, who looked both confused and a little scared. Then she turned Mokona. "Do you sense a feather in this world?"

Mokona pointed. Chun'yan gaped at the odd creature. "It's that way."

"That's the way to the Ryanban's palace," the girl said, turning to look out the window. "You'll have to find some way past the barrier."

Sakura was about to say she'd do whatever it took to retrieve Syaoran's feather, but a high-pitched whirring near the front door interrupted her. She looked over, wondering what the sound could possibly be.

"Get down!" Chun'yan yelled, just as the door flew off its hinges.


	16. Splinters

Chapter Sixteen

The door flew across the room and smashed into the opposite wall, nearly hitting Sakura in its path of destruction. She rolled, tucking her bow close to her body so the fall wouldn't damage it. The arrows in her quarrel shifted, the shafts colliding with each other. Some spilled out as she hit the floor.

"What the hell?" Kurogane demanded, his hand flying to his hip as if reaching for the sword he'd traded to Yuuko. When his hand came up empty, he lifted his arms to block the unnatural wind.

"It's the Ryanban's magic!" Chun'yan shouted over the noise. Sakura snatched the younger girl by the arm and pulled her into her arms, her first instinct to keep the younger girl from flying away.

The wind pulsed through the rickety house, the pressure so intense, the roof splintered and gave way. Bits of wood fell from the ceiling, the wind driving some of the smaller particles into Sakura's skin. She cried out, her arms tightening around Chun'yan's slight frame, as if the other girl could anchor her where she stood.

Abruptly, the wind ceased, leaving placid air in its place. Sakura opened her eyes and got back to her feet. "Is everyone okay?"

"I think so," Fai said, peering across the room at Syaoran. Sakura blinked, shocked she'd forgotten about him during the whirlwind.

"Syaoran, are _you _all right?"

He stood up, a little shaky on his feet. "I'm okay."

She caught sight of a stream of red running down his arm. "You're bleeding!"

"Oh."

The house fell silent as they struggled to recover from the chaos. Chun'yan stepped over a fallen support beam and pulled something from a wooden cabinet. "Here," she said, handing Sakura a small cylinder filled with translucent paste. "My Omoni made this. It keeps infections away."

_Omoni, _Sakura thought, still trying to piece together the meaning of the word. The girl had said it with such sadness before. "What does that mean?" she asked. "You keep saying 'Omoni,' but I don't understand."

Confusion flitted across the other girl's face, as if she couldn't believe they didn't know.

"I'm curious, too," Fai added.

"Omoni . . . It means 'mother,' of course." Chun'yan looked down so her bangs hid her eyes. Sakura felt a little tremor in the air, like the vibrations left over after a drumbeat. Without thinking about it, she handed the cylinder of medicine to Syaoran and knelt down in front of Chun'yan, embracing her as tears ran down her face.

"She's gone, isn't she?" Sakura asked, her cheek brushing against the girl's hair. Chun'yan sniffed and pushed her away.

"The Ryanban murdered her when he took the town." Chun'yan turned away, glaring at the floor. "She's been dead for months."

"And you're here all alone?" Fai questioned, sounding shocked.

"There's nowhere else for me to go. And all my Omoni's magic artifacts are in this house." She picked up a round mirror. It had clattered to the floor, but remained unbroken despite the impact. When Sakura looked at the surface, though, the glass was cloudy, unreflective.

_Maybe it only works when you use magic, _she thought.

"I have to practice until I'm able to face that Ryanban on my own, otherwise . . ." Chun'yan trailed off. Her knuckles turned white as her grip on the mirror tightened.

"We'll help you," Sakura said, standing. Splinters from the roof fell from her cloak.

"What?" Kurogane demanded.

She turned to the ninja, keeping her expression firm. _I am a princess, _she reminded herself. _One day, I'll be Queen. _"If this Ryanban has one of Syaoran's feathers, we have to find it. We might as well help free the village along the way." She turned to Syaoran. "Stay here with Chun'yan. The rest of us will go to the castle." At this, she looked back at Kurogane, half-expecting an argument.

"You sure you want to charge head-on into the palace?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of him.

"It's the quickest way."

"You could get us all killed."

The statement brought her up short. Up until that moment, she'd been only vaguely cognizant of the possibility of getting killed. It seemed like a remote chance given the people she was traveling with. She'd even fooled herself into thinking Syaoran would be able to help her if things got bad. _But he can't yet. He's still too vulnerable. And if Kurogane-san is saying this is dangerous, maybe it is._

_No. I have to go. I have to find Syaoran's feathers. _"Then I'll go alone," she told them, praying they wouldn't call her on her bluff. When no one said anything, she started gathering the arrows that had fallen during the whirlwind and putting them back in her quiver.

"If that's all you've got to go up against the Ryanban," Chun'yan said, raising her eyes to the arrow in Sakura's hand. "you really will die."

"I could go," Syaoran suggested. Fai rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, which he shook off. "I don't want to be a burden to anyone, so if there's anything I can do to help—"

"You'll be more of a burden if you pass out in the castle," Kurogane cut in, as Sakura panicked. "You stay here with the mage and help him fix the roof. I'll go so the princess doesn't get killed." Sakura blinked, stunned at the turn of events. If anything, she'd expect Fai to guilt everyone into going with her.

"There's a barrier around the castle," Chun'yan said. "My Omoni didn't leave me anything capable of breaking through it. I don't know how to get in."

Sakura's shoulders slumped. _So this whole conversation has been for nothing._

"Syaoran, don't eat that," Fai said quietly, tugging Syaoran's medicine-covered hands from his mouth.

"I wasn't going to," he murmured. "I'm trying to figure out what this medicine is made of." He sniffed the translucent cream, his dark eyebrows coming together. "It smells like . . . something. But I can't remember what."

Sakura walked over and took the container from his hand and smelled it. "Mint. Lavender. Beeswax. And something else."

"The lavender was to mask the other smells. The plain stuff doesn't smell as good."

Sakura nodded, expecting this. Beside her, Syaoran wiped the paste across the wound on his upper arm, as well as over a few minor scrapes and cuts. _If you didn't know him, he seems almost normal, _she thought.

"Maybe we should call Yuuko," Fai suggested.

"Huh?"

"To shatter the barrier around the castle. If Yuuko-san can create something that lets us travel like this, she probably has something that can do that."

Sakura hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to pay another price, but how else would they get into the castle? If Chun'yan was right about the barrier, then Yuuko was their last option.

Mokona popped out of Kurogane's armor, much to the ninja's surprise. "Mokona will call Yuuko." The white creature hopped down, perching itself on the fallen support beam. The red gem in the creature's forehead glowed, glinting like a ruby held up to the sun. A moment later, a circle of light appeared on the opposite wall, with Yuuko at its center.

"Oh? You need me already?" the witch asked, a mischievous smile curling up her lips.

Fai explained the situation, summarizing everything that had happened in this world in just a few sentences. When he finished recounting his tale, Yuuko nodded. "So you need some way to break through this magic barrier."

"That's right," Fai said.

"There is a way, but that will require you to pay a price."

_Not this again, _Sakura thought, her mind flashing to the ramifications of the last price. _Syaoran will never remember me. He'll never know what he meant to me before this journey. _

"You want this?" Fai asked, holding up the ornate staff he'd come to the witch's shop with. Sakura realized she'd missed half the conversation in her panic. The edges of the staff seemed made of ice, judging by their color, yet they hadn't melted in the jungle country of Ookami-kuni, or in this temperate world.

"You offered it to me in place of your tattoo," Yuuko reminded him.

Fai scratched the back of his head as if embarrassed. "I suppose that's true. And I can't really use my magic without my tattoo." Something like sadness crossed the magician's face, before he shifted back to his normal smile. "I guess I have no choice. I accept."

"Excellent. Send it through Mokona, and I'll send you something to break the barrier."

The circle of light shivered and disappeared.

"That was amazing," Chun'yan whispered, staring at the spot on the wall where the image had just been. "I've never seen anything so strange."

Sakura looked at Mokona, flinching when the creature swallowed Fai's magic staff whole. But instead of spearing the creature through the throat as physics dictated it should, the staff disappeared into another dimension.

Just a few days ago, Sakura would've found that shocking. But already, the novelty was wearing off. Mokona could turn into a cannon at this point, and she wouldn't be surprised.

Something shot out of Mokona's mouth, into Fai's hands. The magician examined it, turning it over a few times. "It looks like a ball of mud."

"Yuuko says it will get through the barrier, and Mokona believes her," the white creature said.

Kurogane sighed. "Are we going or not?"

Sakura stepped forward, her finger tracing the bowstring. "Let's go."


	17. Poles

_Author's Notes:_

_Since we didn't really see much of Sakura's magical abilities in the actual series, I took some liberties with what she learned from Yukito. For the remainder of the story, we can assume she has some basic perception of magic, as well as the ability to perform simple spells from various disciplines._

* * *

><p>Chapter Seventeen<p>

Sakura tilted her head up to look at the barrier, a knot forming in her stomach. She could see the threads of magic, woven together in a massive dome around the palace. The translucent barrier loomed above her, a forbidding wall built to impede her passage.

"So this is it," Kurogane said, examining the barrier.

"This is it," she murmured, cradling the brown sphere in her hands. It looked exactly as Fai had described it—like a ball of mud—but if she looked closely, she could see the ribbons of magic tied together under the surface. "What do we do with it?"

Mokona spoke, leaning out of her hood. "You throw it."

She looked doubtfully at the mud ball, then to the barrier. After a moment, she took the sphere in one hand and threw it toward the curving wall.

It bounced off and landed harmlessly in the grass.

"You're going to have to throw it harder than that," Kurogane said. Sakura flitted over to the mud ball, heat rising to her face. She backed away from the wall and threw it again, putting as much force behind it as she could. Again, it bounced off the surface of the barrier and landed near her feet.

She heard an exasperated sigh. "Do you need me to do it?" Kurogane asked.

She shook her head, not looking at him. "No, I can." She took a deep breath, not sure if that was the truth or not. _I have to make this count, _she thought. _I have to, otherwise I'll never be able to retrieve Syaoran's feather._

Sakura stepped away from the wall, trying to think of some other method. After almost a minute of thinking about it, an idea occurred to her.

She knelt down, removing an arrow from her quiver. From the kimono Chun'yan had lent her, she tore off a ribbon.

Kurogane watched her preparations, saying nothing.

When she was finished, the mud ball hung from her arrow by a strip of red ribbon, weighing the projectile down near the tip. Sakura picked up her bow and positioned the arrow, aiming high to compensate for the extra weight. Her fingers pulled the bowstring back as far as it would go.

When she released the string, the arrow shot forward. Almost instantly, she saw how the extra weight affected the flight pattern. Even with her corrections, the sphere dragged the arrow down and slowed its path. But none of that mattered because, when it hit the wall, the magic binding the sphere together shattered and a dozen black limbs reached around the barrier. Cracks flawed the translucent surface, spreading out from the point of impact. After a tense moment, the magic holding up the barrier broke apart, and the shield dissolved.

"So you _do _have a brain in your head," Kurogane said as she went over to pick up the arrow. Sakura glanced back.

"What do you mean by that?"

The ninja didn't look at her. "You and the mage both have faces that say 'don't bother with me, I'm a fool.' But apparently, you understand at least some of what's going on, if you thought of that."

She deposited the arrow in her quiver. "Sometimes, I think I am a fool," she said. "I started this journey without even realizing the consequences, and I still can't handle most of what we face in these worlds. But I want to find Syaoran's feathers, whatever it takes."

Kurogane passed over the boundary delineated by the shield.

Sakura allowed herself to wonder what he was thinking, as calm as he was. Though he'd almost certainly faced combat before, she had little grasp of how extensive his skills were. The scuffles in the last two worlds had been fairly minor—if Syaoran had retained his memories, he would've come out of the fights in much the same way the rest of them had. But, up against a magician powerful enough to erect a barrier that size, she could only imagine the horrors that lurked within the castle.

The barrier had apparently been the primary means to keep intruders out of the castle, because they didn't see a single guard on the way in. None of the exterior doors were barricaded, either. _Except for the magic barrier, this place has less security than the castle in Clow._

The realization pulled her thoughts back to the desert country, to the people she valued most. _I don't even know if Touya survived the attack, _she thought as they slipped in through a side entrance. She started down the corridor, moving quickly in the hopes that the Ryanban hadn't noticed the breach in his barrier.

The corridor went on for quite a while, much longer than any passage in Clow, though she'd guessed from the exterior that it was larger than her home. "This is a strange way to build a castle," she murmured.

Kurogane glanced back, then looked forward again. Something about his expression compelled her to explain.

"Even if we didn't go through the main entrance, it's inefficient to set up a castle with such long corridors that don't branch off. Any servants or nobles coming through this hallway would have to reach the end before being able to turn, and if there was ever an assassin in the castle, it would be easy for them to corner someone here."

Kurogane grunted in agreement. "You think this was built to mess with intruders?"

_That would make sense, _she thought. _It could even be magic, given how much the Ryanban's power has increased after finding the feather. _"It could be."

Kurogane stopped, glancing over his shoulder at the hallway behind her. She turned reflexively, seeing nothing except the passage they'd spent the last twenty minutes walking through. When she looked forward again, she realized that, no matter which way she looked, the corridor was identical. "It's a circle," she whispered. "We've been walking in circles."

"Damn," the ninja muttered. Sakura spun around, being sure to keep tabs on which way they'd been going. It should've been impossible to get turned around in a linear room like this, but the more she thought about it, the more this hallway hinted at magic. Finally, she stepped to the side and pressed an ear to the wall, listening. All she could hear was a faint hum.

"So what now?" Kurogane asked. "Since we can't turn back."

She ran her fingertips across the paper walls, trying to detect a magic presence, as Yukito had taught her. The soft hum she'd detected before resolved itself into a single note, vibrating from beyond the walls in an endless ripple. Gradually, she moved forward, listening. The vibrations changed in frequency, getting faster as she walked. When the sounds shifted to a high-pitched buzz, she stopped. "I think there's something beyond this wall."

"Here." Kurogane moved to her side and took a fighting stance. Sakura stepped away, flinching when the ninja's fist smashed into the wall. Wood splintered and paper tore as that section of the wall crumbled away. An eager grin split Kurogane's face. Blood ran down his knuckles, where the splinters had dug into his skin. He seemed unaware of the damage. "Let's go."

Sakura stepped gingerly over the wreckage, pulling her kimono up so it wouldn't restrain her legs. She found herself wishing she'd had time to pack a pair of pants before Yukito had sent her to Yuuko's shop.

"Ah," someone said. "It's been a long time since I've had visitors."

Sakura looked toward the voice. The speaker pushed past a pair of silken curtains.

For a moment, Sakura wasn't sure how to classify the speaker. Though she was feminine enough to be identified as a woman, Sakura didn't think she could properly classify the black-eyed creature as human. Fingernails stretched out from her fingertips, long enough to be called claws, and her eyes were glassy black orbs, lacking a distinction between pupil and sclera. Rather than having hair, the woman sported a crown-like structure from her head, like webbed horns.

"I am the Kishiim," she said, making a sweeping gesture toward herself.

"Excuse me," Sakura said, stepping forward. "We're looking for the Ryanban. Can you tell us where he is?" _I sound like a tourist, _she thought.

"The Ryanban is above. However, I am afraid I cannot allow you children to ascend to that level."

"Who are you calling a child?" Kurogane muttered, stepping forward.

"To me, all humans are as children. You live such short lives—you're really more comparable to insects than children." The Kishiim let out a tinkling laugh. "How unfortunate that I must crush such insignificant humans."

Kurogane's grin widened at the challenge.

Sakura felt the magic in the room ripple, like the wake left behind after a boat moves across a lake. The scenery shifted, the floor turning to water. Poles of various heights stuck up from the clear liquid, opening a path between them and the Kishiim. "Come along, children," she crooned. "It's been so long since I've gotten to fight."

Kurogane leapt forward, grabbing onto one of the poles and climbing to the top. From there, he sprang to the next pole.

Sakura started for the water. It wasn't until she was ankle-deep that she realized the water was burning her skin. She retreated, shaking off her feet as the burning water seeped into her skin. "This water burns!"

Kurogane glanced back, then down, his expression turning grim for a moment before settling back into a fierce smile. "Looks like things just got interesting."

Sakura found a pole close to her and jumped for it. Her arms fumbled to hold her body up, and for almost a minute, all she could do was slowly sidle up the pole. By the time she reached the top, Kurogane was already halfway across the room, one of the thinner poles in his hands.

She stood on her perch for a moment, trying to identify the next pole in her path. It was rather like the games she'd played in the castle, where she'd pretended the floor was made of lava, and she had to avoid touching it to win the game. _That's all this is, _she told herself, securing her bow on her back so it wouldn't get in her way. When she was ready, she sprang for the next pole.

The impact hit her hard, just where Ryon had bruised her in the last world. Fireworks of pain shot up the line of her jaw, leaving her reeling. Several seconds passed before she remembered she had to climb to keep from falling in the burning water. She steeled herself to keep going. By the time she reached the top, she was out of breath.

"I hope you both know that, even though this playground is an illusion, all your injuries are real," the Kishiim announced. Globes of water rose from the surface of the pond, hovering above them and moving across the battlefield. As Kurogane hopped to his next perch, he was forced to smash several of the floating orbs open, spraying the burning liquid all over himself.

_Oh no, _Sakura thought, leaping to the next pole. Thinner than the others, this one flexed when she hit it, snapping off at the base. She felt it give beneath her, and released it, falling over six feet into the knee-deep water. Water splashed across her kimono, onto her face and hands. The pond swallowed up her legs as she tried to recover from the impact. As the burning set in, she realized she was running out of time. She sprinted through the water, raising her hands above her head as the orbs above her head ruptured. Burning rain ran down her hair, searing her scalp.

As she ran, her damaged hands sought her bow. She hadn't trained with it since the last world, and even then, her skill level had been low, but if she could get in a lucky shot . . .

_Then what? You'll kill that Kishiim? _She flinched away from the idea, lowering her bow even as she sloshed through the deepening water. As she approached the curtains from which the Kishiim worked her magic, the faint hum she'd heard in the hallway resumed, tickling her eardrums. She closed her eyes, stopping in the middle of the pond. The liquid continued to burn her legs, like fire clinging to her skin.

There was the Kishiim's magic, but also a secondary presence, radiating out from the crown of her head. It was at once familiar and alien, like a song she'd never heard written in a style she knew well.

_It's the feather, _she realized with a jolt. _But it's being filtered through something. _She opened her eyes, trying to identify the object through which it was being channeled. When she caught sight of the red gem on the Kishiim's forehead, she lifted her bow.

Then lowered it. _I can't, _she thought. _If I fire, I could miss and kill her by mistake. _

The pain in her lower legs was growing unbearable now. She scrambled to the nearest pole, desperate to get away from the pond. More liquid fire fell from the globes above her. _I have to do something, _she thought, tilting her head up to look once more at the gem on the Kishiim's face. "Kurogane-san!" she yelled. "You have to destroy the gem on her forehead."

The ninja's eyes flashed down to her for just a moment before he sprang to his next perch. Unlike her, he had no trouble navigating this battlefield.

Sakura climbed the pole, moaning in relief when her legs met open air. Meanwhile, the rain continued to burn into her scalp, her back, her kimono.

"This rain hurts," Kurogane said, jumping down from his perch. He landed on his feet, just outside the silk curtains. His arms came around, hands holding tight to his makeshift weapon. "So turn it _off_!"

The dull end of the pole came down hard on the red crystal, shattering it like a piece of costume jewelry. The Kishiim recoiled, arms going limp at her sides as the magic in the room shattered. The pole Sakura had been clinging to turned to air, and she fell, landing hard on the now-dry floor. Her feet curled up under her, the first few layers of skin burned off by the pond's waters. She stretched her legs, wincing as the movement pulled at her wounds.

The Kishiim staggered back, her clawed hand going to the fractured gem on her forehead. Fragments of red fell to the floor with tiny _plinks_. Her glassy black eyes looked up at Kurogane. Though the strange color made it hard to tell, Sakura thought she saw something like relief in those eyes.

Before she could think it through any more, the Kishiim leaned in and planted a kiss on Kurogane's cheek. He reeled back, a strange grin crossing his face. "What was that for?"

"A gesture of gratitude," the Kishiim said, smiling. "For the child who finally set me free from that Ryanban's curse."

"Curse?" Sakura echoed.

The Kishiim nodded. "Yes. That crude shinban fastened that gem to me to make me his slave. Now that it is broken, I am free." She tilted her head to the side, a soft smile curving up her lips.

"Wait," Sakura said. "We need to find this Ryanban so we can return something precious to my friend."

The Kishiim tilted her head toward the ceiling. "As I said, he is above. I will give you means to travel to the upper floor, but I warn you: the trials there will be just as strenuous as this one."

"I have to go," she said. "Even if it causes me pain, I have to return Syaoran's feathers to him."

"Very well. Step this way, please."

Sakura got to her feet, wobbling slightly as the pain registered with her again. Once she reached the indicated area, the Kishiim lifted her arms and murmured an incantation. A circle of light spread out around the border of the curtains, encompassing all three of them. When the circle reached a certain diameter, it rose to the ceiling, carrying them with it. Sakura stepped closer to the center, uneasy with the sudden shift.

They crashed through the roof in much the same fashion as Kurogane had crashed through the wall earlier. Splinters and other debris rained down on them as they broke through, and Sakura lifted her arms up to shield herself from the shrapnel. Once they settled in on the top floor, the Kishiim released the spell. "The object you're searching for is somewhere on this floor," she said, turning away.

"Where are you going?" Kurogane demanded.

"I have something else to search for," the Kishiim stated, disappearing down a corridor.

Sakura turned to Kurogane. "Are you all right?"

He threw her a look, questioning her sanity. "Of _course_ I'm all right. I've been hurt much worse than this before."

She let it go, holding her bow out in front of her in case she had to shoot at something. "Mokona, can you still sense the feather?" she asked.

"Yes. It's that way." Mokona pointed.

Sakura started walking in that direction. It wasn't until Kurogane tensed beside her that she heard the footfalls.

"You two are just looking for trouble," Ryon said, emerging from behind a wall. Sakura lifted her bow, hoping the threat alone would ward him off, like last time. Instead, Ryon stepped forward. "That won't help you now, little girl. My aboji put wards on me to keep those pesky little arrows at bay."

She retreated half a step. Mokona hopped from Kurogane's shoulder to hers. "Go," the ninja said, lifting the splintered pole he'd taken from the last room. Unlike those still attached to the floor, this one hadn't dissolved. "I'll take care of this brat."

Sakura nodded, then skittered around the hulking teenager. His meaty hand reached out, too late, to grab the back of her kimono.

Sakura heard the sound of wood hitting flesh as she fled into the next room.


	18. Peaceful Nights

Chapter Eighteen

Paranoia sunk its claws deep into her lungs as her footsteps echoed through the corridor. _There's no one behind me, _she told herself. _There's no reason to be so scared._

It was a pleasant lie—that there was nothing to be scared of. It almost made her forget that the Ryanban was probably waiting to ambush her, or that the castle housed magical traps. Until she retrieved Syaoran's feather, anything could happen.

She reached the end of the corridor. The hallway opened up into a vast room, with a ceiling made of twinkling stars. Sakura stared at the night sky, startled. There was no way they'd been here long enough for night to fall. It had been midday when they'd entered the castle, and they hadn't spent more than an hour infiltrating it. _Is it some sort of illusion? _she wondered.

The sound of applause pulled her from her musings; she glanced down.

"I didn't expect you to get past my Kishiim," the man said, stepping out from the corridor and walking to a pedestal topped with a foggy white sphere. The man's bulbous nose and sunken eyes allowed her to make the connection to Ryon.

"You're the Ryanban, aren't you?"

His lips twitched into a grin. "So you've heard of me. I'm not surprised."

"I've come to retrieve something."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What might a little girl like you want from me?"

_Keep your head up. Show no fear. _"I understand a feather fell into your possession before you took over this town."

"Ah yes, the feather." He grinned. "Unfortunately, I can't allow you to take it back. So sorry."

Her fingers tightened around the bow. _I have to get it back for Syaoran. _She raised her bow, adjusting the arrow so it sat level with her arm. With an effort, she managed to breathe the way Fai had taught her, that first day she'd trained with him. Slow, steady. "I have to get it back," she said. "If that means . . . If that means doing something I thought I'd never do . . . I'll do it."

The Ryanban made a gesture with his hands, as if beckoning someone from the hallway behind him. All at once, dozens of people rushed out, moving around him like a barricade. Every single one of them had a weapon of some sort, ranging from farm tools to spears. Sakura's heart flew to her throat, panic settling over her as she took in the sheer _number _of them. They overflowed from the hallway, spreading across the vast room until they touched the walls on either side, and even then, they kept coming, pushing forward—not dozens of them, as she'd first tallied, but hundreds, with hundreds of pairs of glassy eyes, staring back at her, backing her into a corner . . .

_Breathe! _she told herself, sucking in a sharp breath. She raised her bow. "Don't come any closer!"

"They can't hear you, girl," the Ryanban said, and for a moment, she was shocked that she could hear _him_. But slowly it dawned on her that, not only were the villagers staring at her blankly, they weren't speaking, weren't even shuffling around as undisciplined soldiers ought to. The feather's magic leaked through them, tainted by the mind controlling them all.

_They're possessed, _she realized. _They have no control over their actions. And if I shoot . . ._ Her breath quickened.

If it had been only the Ryanban, she might've been able to consider it—after oppressing his people and sending his son out to terrorize poor shopkeepers, the cruel shinban deserved punishment.

But she could not, would not, raise her weapon against these people when they had no command of their own bodies.

"I'll give you one chance, little girl. Run back to your friends. Leave this town, and I'll let you live."

She lowered her head, trying to find the resolve to fight back, trying to justify hurting these people to help Syaoran. In the pressing silence, she heard the _thwack _of wood against flesh. _That's right, _she thought. _Kurogane-san is still fighting to make sure I can retrieve Syaoran's feathers. And if I can't find the resolve to face my enemies, I have no right to ask the same of him. _She opened her eyes. "I will not."

The Ryanban smirked. "Then you will die here."

Three hundred men and women converged on her, swarming like agitated wasps. Sakura went to her knees, thinking back to her lessons with Yukito. She called her magic to the forefront of her mind, letting it spread so it consumed everything. A thin film of energy moved across her body, raising hairs on her arms and neck.

All the while, the possessed villagers encroached on her space.

_Breathe. _The magic covered every inch of her skin, ballooning out. Silently, she wished she hadn't snuck away from her magic lessons so often to visit Syaoran.

The rumbling footsteps shook her teeth, closer than before.

The intangible bubble of magic solidified around her, forming a glassy surface not unlike the barrier the Ryanban had erected around the castle. Impacts rocked the shield, bouncing back with as much force as they'd been thrown. The first few drones were flung back by the force of their own assaults being directed back at them.

Keeping half her mind on the barrier, she started working another spell. This one, Yukito had once described, had a shape like curled ribbons. She imagined the shape in her mind, calling on the remainder of her magic to bind it together. A spiral formed, wriggling in her grasp.

_Breathe. Ignore the impacts. Focus on stopping these people._

The ribbons of magic solidified, resonating at a higher pitch than the bass rumble of her shield. Like springs, they coiled tight; Sakura fought to hold them together.

More impacts. Something sharp smashed into the barrier and pierced it. Tiny cracks started forming around the weak point. Meanwhile the ribbons coiled tighter, her shoulders tensing under the force of her control.

Her pitiful shield shattered. Like a loaded crossbow, the coils exploded, blowing her attackers back. Sakura's eyes flew open, and she let out a breath she'd told herself not to hold in.

The ribbons tore through the air, unfurling as they went. As they fell over the townspeople, the men and women started to lower their weapons, looks of confusion replacing their blank masks. A clamor broke out among the people as they tried to recall where they were.

"What do you think you're doing?" the Ryanban demanded. The villagers looked back at him, some with anger, some with fear. Through the crowd, Sakura saw the Ryanban's face turn timid.

Like a starving man grabbing for a loaf of bread, the Ryanban reached for the foggy white orb sitting on the pedestal. A familiar glow emanated from the cloudy sphere. When Sakura looked at it, the angular shape resolved itself into that of Syaoran's feather.

"Don't let him get it!" she yelled, hoping one of the villagers was close enough to respond to her command, hoping there was time enough for them to process the words.

In the end, it wasn't one of the villagers that stopped the Ryanban from snatching the feather. Long fingernails locked around the man's throat, pulling him back so he tottered on his heels. His arms pin-wheeled as he tried to regain his balance. A spindly arm wrapped around his thick forearms, pinning him where he stood.

"That's quite enough."

Sakura's eyes flashed to the bug-like eyes of the Kishiim. "Oh my . . ."

Footsteps echoed in the hallway behind her, moving fast. She turned in time to see Kurogane burst into the crowded room. His face changed from urgency to confusion. "What the hell?"

"Ah, children, excellent timing," the Kishiim said. The villagers, some still coming out of their stupor, turned to look at the creature's face, some shouting in shock. The Kishiim tightened her grip around the Ryanban's throat and used her free hand to smash the globe containing the feather. Sakura darted forward, heart quickening. Pain lanced through her legs, leftover from the acid water of the Ryanban's trap.

The feather drifted above the villagers' heads, like a leaf in the wind, then sunk to her level. She caught it by the tip and cradled it to her chest, as if someone might snatch it away. It was possible—there were a lot of people crammed into this small space, and it wouldn't take much prodding to spur them into a riot.

The Kishiim tightened her grip around the Ryanban's throat. "Perhaps it is time for you to come meet _my _children," she said. The air shimmered around her, warping like the air over desert sands.

"Wait!" a voice called. Sakura's head whipped around, and she caught sight of Chun'yan's ponytail bobbing through the crowd. "Wait a second!"

_When did she get here? _Sakura wondered.

The Kishiim hesitated, staring at the girl with a mixture of confusion and recognition. "You . . . Who are you?"

"My name is Chun'yan."

"Chun'yan . . ."

The girl opened her mouth to speak again, but a swift gesture from the Kishiim cut her off. Tears budding in her eyes, Chun'yan closed her mouth.

"Chun'yan . . . Yes, I believe I've heard that name before. And with your magic aura . . . You could only be that shinban's daughter."

The tears started flowing freely now. Chun'yan swept past Sakura, her loose outfit fluttering with the movement of her passage. "My Omoni . . . Did you . . . Were you the one who—"

"Be calm, child."

Chun'yan's voice rose with indignation. "Did you kill her?"

From the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Kurogane tense.

The Kishiim spoke. "Aye. Your mother was a very skilled shinban. It was both an honor and a tragedy to defeat her."

Chun'yan's shoulders slumped. Just when Sakura thought the girl was going to start sobbing, Chun'yan rushed forward.

_She's going to get herself killed, _Sakura thought, rising from her crouch to chase after the girl. Despite her longer legs, she was out of breath by the time she caught up to the child. "You can't! Taking revenge will only hurt you later on."

Chun'yan struggled in her grip, trying to wriggle free. Sakura used her leverage to wrap an arm around the child's waist and pull her back.

The Kishiim spoke. "All I did, I did as a slave to this foul Ryanban. If you wish to take your revenge, take it upon him now."

Chun'yan scowled at the Kishiim for a long moment before she looked down. "That guy . . . isn't worth the energy it takes to hit him!"

Sakura sighed, relieved. As the younger girl relaxed, Sakura pulled her into her arms. "Everything will be all right."

The air warped around the Kishiim again, distorting more and more until Sakura recognized the viscous fluid of the dimensional sea. It wrapped around the Kishiim and her prisoner, engulfing them, then changing shape until it disappeared.

It was . . . strange. Seeing someone travel between worlds from an outsider's eyes. The villagers evidently thought the same thing, because for several minutes afterwards, there was chaos in the wide room. Eventually, Chun'yan wiped her face and got to her feet. "Everyone, listen!"

Only a few eyes turned in her direction, but the sudden silence of those few listeners spread across the whole room, like a band dying away during a rehearsal. After a few seconds, Chun'yan had everyone's attention.

"All of you, follow me out of this castle. Our town is free!"

There was a chorus of excitement at the announcement. At once, people began flowing after Chun'yan. Sakura shifted forward, using her hand to brace herself as she tried to stand.

"Here," Kurogane said, offering his hand. Uncertainly, she took it. He pulled her up, much higher than she'd expected. She closed her eyes, gasping. When she finally came to rest, she opened her eyes again to realize he was carrying her like an infant.

"You don't have to do this," she mumbled.

"Your legs are hurt, right? If you walk on them, you'll hurt yourself worse."

She looked down at her seared skin, wincing at the mere thought of walking, over dirt roads rife with stray rocks, to Chun'yan's house. So instead of fighting back, she closed her eyes and clutched Syaoran's feather closer to her chest.

Kurogane carried her out of the palace. This time, they took a less arduous route, with stairs instead of magical, Kishiim-generated elevators. The sheer number of people meant it took them almost half an hour to make it out of the castle, plus thirty minutes more to make it back to Chun'yan's house, but Kurogane never complained about having to carry her.

Fai was waiting outside. When he saw them, his face bloomed with a smile. "Sakura-chan, Kuro-pon, you'll never guess what happened while you were gone!"

Sakura tensed, fingers curling tight around the pale brown feather. "What? Is Syaoran hurt?"

"Oh no, nothing like that. A while after you guys left, it was like everyone had just switched languages. Syaoran-kun and I couldn't understand each other at all."

"It wore off just a few minutes ago," Syaoran said, rising from the floor.

"Yep. And that's when we figured _Mokona _must be translating for us. Isn't that wonderful?"

Kurogane's arms went rigid, and Sakura decided it was a good time to slip out of his grasp, no matter how much walking hurt her. Just as she got down, Kurogane's voice boomed across the room. "You mean we have to carry that _thing_ around everywhere we go?"

"That's what it means, Kuro-rin."

"You're joking."

Fai shook his head. "Not this time."

"Enough messing around," Chun'yan interrupted. "Two of you are hurt, and unless you get some salve on your wounds, they're only going to get worse."

"It really does help," Syaoran interjected, holding out a cylinder of medicine." Sakura took it gratefully and plopped down on the floor, unscrewing the lid. A sigh of relief broke through her lips as she rubbed the cooling balm over her burnt legs.

"Here," Syaoran said, kneeling beside her. "I can help with that."

"No, no, it's fine. Um . . . I found one of your feathers."

Syaoran blinked as she held the feather close to him. As it neared his chest, it started moving of its own accord, drifting closer as if pulled by a thread attached to his heart.

Sakura had just enough warning to set her bow aside before he collapsed into her arms. "Syaoran-kun?"

"It looks like that's going to be happening a lot," Kurogane said, wiping a layer of salve over the worst of his burns. Despite his more active role in the fight, he was unscathed except for the light damage done by the acid rain.

_I was so stupid, just standing in that water while it burned me. Now we're going to have to stay here until I can walk again. _She sighed, running her fingers through Syaoran's hair.

It took her several minutes to realize everyone was casting glances her way. She looked up, her hand freezing on the back of Syaoran's head, and met Fai's eyes.

He smiled back at her—not with his usual exuberant grin, but with a sad little smile. "It might be best to find him a place to sleep for the night," he said. "You should sleep, too."

"You can stay in my Omoni's room," Chun'yan said quietly. "After all, you saved the town."

"Thank you," Sakura said, slipping out from beneath Syaoran and struggling to pull him to his feet. _Maybe I should've waited until he was in bed to give him the feather, _she thought.

Kurogane picked Syaoran up and hoisted him over his shoulder. "If you need help, ask," he said.

Sakura glanced down. "I don't want to be a burden to you. I'm the one who wanted to save Syaoran, so I'll take care of it."

"Don't be stupid. If you hurt yourself trying to do something you're not capable of, he'll end up taking care of _you_."

She shook her head, but Kurogane had already left and laid Syaoran down on the straw mattress in the bedroom.

"He's right, Sakura-chan," Fai said, in a much friendlier tone. "You get the feathers, we'll get the heavy lifting."

"Thank you," she murmured, walking over to the room where Syaoran was sleeping. As she reached the doorway, she turned. "I'm going to sleep."

At the castle in Clow, the declaration would've spurred a flurry of activity from her servants—bathtubs being filled, pajamas pressed and kept warm for her, sheets being changed. Now it was met only with a few absent nods and a smile from Fai.

She closed the door, a warped, unstable artifact, and went to the straw mattress. It was a square mattress, about half again her body length on any given side. After a brief hesitation, she crawled onto the bed and swaddled herself in blankets. "Sweet dreams, Syaoran," she whispered, though she knew he was too deeply asleep to hear her. "I'll see you in the morning."

She laid down beside him. For a long moment, all she did was stare at his slackened features, at the childlike innocence in his sleeping face. _This journey will not be a peaceful one, _she thought. _But at least we can have a few peaceful nights._


	19. The Sapphire Islands

Chapter Nineteen

"You can keep these," Chun'yan said, holding out several cylinders. Sakura took the medicine in her hands, surprised. "As payment for saving the town. It's not much, but it will help you recover, so . . ." The young girl trailed off, smiling.

"Thank you," Sakura said. Her toes wriggled in her shoes, still raw from the burning water. When she thought about how much worse the pain _could _be, her smile twisted into a grimace. _I'll definitely need this salve, _she thought. _I have to stay strong so I can find Syaoran's feathers. _

"Good luck on your journey," Chun'yan said. "And if you ever come back here, you know where to find me. I might even be a full-fledged shinban by then." Her grin stretched wider.

Sakura smiled, joining Fai, Kurogane, and Syaoran at the top of the hill. "I'm looking forward to it."

Mokona hopped onto her shoulder, as light as one of Syaoran's feathers. The little creature stuck out her paw and waved at the villagers who'd gathered to see them off. Sakura suspected most of them were just curious about how they planned to jump between worlds. "Everybody ready?" Mokona asked.

Sakura's gaze flitted to Syaoran. To her surprise, he was already watching her. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before he looked away, cheeks flaming.

"Let's go," Sakura said, trying to smile despite the flutter in her stomach.

Light poured from Mokona's back in the form of ribbon-like wings. For one second, Sakura was reminded of the magnificent bronze wings that had sprouted from Syaoran's shoulders in the ruins of Clow.

She shivered.

A circle of light spread out around their party, bearing patterns Sakura couldn't begin to decipher. All around, the villagers gasped, marveling at their sorcery. Wind rushed all around them, ripping grass from the hillside. Suddenly, Sakura was glad they'd moved far enough from the villagers to keep from harming them.

The light from the circle rose, turning murky as it coagulated in the air. Sakura watched with wonder as the dimensional sea swallowed them up, then held her breath, hoping the next world they landed in would have a feather.

There was a moment, after Koryo disappeared, when all she felt was the prickling sensation of the dimensional sea rushing over her skin. And then the world bloomed with color and sound again, and she was falling.

Her legs splashed through the water first, pain flaring in her muscles as they broke the surface. Her arms coiled reflexively around her chest to protect her, but the liquid swallowed her up anyway, soaking her clothes and hair and skin. She opened her mouth to shout, then slammed her lips shut to stem the flow of water. Her arms flailed, every movement sluggish under the heavy water. With a jolt, she realized she couldn't swim.

Her legs kicked in a clumsy imitation of what she'd read in storybooks. If anything, her frantic movements served only to propel her deeper into the lukewarm water. Her hand reached out, seeking something to grab onto, but there was nothing to grasp, nothing but the endless, deadly sea around her.

Growing up in a desert clearly had its drawbacks.

From her baths at the palace, she knew she was supposed to hold her breath underwater, lest she drown before anyone could come to her aid. But with the gulp of water that had invaded her mouth, and her lack of preparation, her lungs burned with the lack of oxygen. A few moments more, and she wouldn't be able to keep her mouth closed anymore. _How ironic, _she thought. _A thousand ways to die on this journey, and I'm going to drown. It's so . . . mundane._

Her hands stretched out as far as they would go. She opened her eyes, trying to orient herself, but water was not a slave to gravity, and it took her almost ten seconds to find the shining patches that marked the surface. She reached for the bright spots, kicking her legs in the opposite direction in an attempt to push herself toward the air she so desperately needed, but her body remained stubbornly in one place, as if unaffected by buoyancy.

Something moved in her peripheral vision, pale and narrow. She reached for it, praying it would lead her to the surface, but before her fingers could wrap around the object, it snatched her wrist and pulled her up. The water rippled around her, displaced by her movement.

It didn't matter. As soon as her head broke the surface, she spat out the mouthful of water she'd almost inhaled and took a deep breath, cleansing her lungs of carbon-dioxide. Her fingers twined around whatever had pulled her to safety and, startled, she realized it had been Fai. She pulled herself toward him, knowing that the moment she lost contact with her savior, she would sink under the water again.

"Wow, you were under for a long time, Sakura-chan."

"I don't know how to _swim_!" she shouted hoarsely.

Fai blinked, a strange smile crossing his face. "But aren't you a princess?"

"I live in a _desert_! Why would I ever learn how to _swim_?" She took another deep breath, struggling to fight off her panic. Logically, she knew that Fai had just saved her life and it was wrong to scream at him, but all she could think was that her rescue could've been swifter.

"Are you all right, Princess?"

Syaoran's voice jolted her out of her panic for a moment, and she turned her head, still clinging to Fai. Syaoran seemed perfectly at ease, treading water as if he'd been swimming since birth. Sakura wondered if he'd remembered how to swim from one of the feathers, or if his muscle memory was keeping him afloat where she'd so clumsily flailed. Behind him Kurogane was treading water, struggling to keep his head above the surface as the weight of his armor pulled him down.

She opened her mouth to ask Syaoran how he knew how to swim, then closed it when something occurred to her. "You . . . What did you just call me?"

"Princess," he said uncertainly. The title pulled painfully at her heart. _I always told him to call me "Sakura," _she thought. _But he'll never remember that now. _

As the moments passed in silence, Syaoran's face grew sheepish. "Is that all right? Fai-san told me you were a princess when I first woke up, but I didn't really know enough to call you that until I remembered what Fujitaka . . . what my father taught me about nobility."

"You can call me Sakura," she said quietly.

"Can we forget about the titles for a few minutes and get to dry land?" Kurogane demanded. "My armor's going to rust if I can't dry it out."

Sakura looked around. The water rippled all around them, sunlight glinting off the crest of each wave like light reflected off a mirror. Finally, Fai raised the arm she wasn't clinging to and pointed toward something behind her. "That looks like the only dry land around here. Shall we swim?"

Sakura stared doubtfully at the distant island. The stone steps seemed to rise straight from the water. From here, the stairs looked almost like marble, though she had no idea as to what they'd look like up close; they could've been made up of pebbles for all she knew. At the top of the steps were a few dozen rectangular prisms, shooting up into the air as high as Clow Castle. Buildings, most likely. _This world has been settled then. _

In silent agreement, they all started for the manmade island. Sakura clung to Fai like a life raft, knowing she was weighing him down, but also that she'd slow them all even more if she tried to plow through the salty waters on her own.

Fai seemed not to notice her presence at all, however. In fact, he sliced through the water at nearly twice the speed of the others, sometimes stopping to wait for them before gliding ahead. The only indication that he was aware of her presence was the fact that, while he often dunked his head under the water, he never went deep enough to drag her down with him.

With Kurogane dressed in full armor, and Syaoran acclimating to a skill he apparently hadn't known he'd possessed, their journey was slow. Almost half an hour passed between the time they first saw the island and when they reached the edge of the stairs.

"It's shallow here, Sakura-chan," Fai said as they neared the island. "You can touch the bottom."

Face flaming, she released the magician and let her feet sink down until they touched the solid ground beneath. Fai kept a guiding hand on her arm, making sure she didn't drift off. "Thank you," she squeaked, walking toward the part of the island that was aboveground. She felt much better when her fingers touched the solid surface. She pulled herself onto the steps and waited for Kurogane and Syaoran to swim the last few meters to the island.

"Well, that was quite an adventure, don't you think, Kuro-pon?"

"Quit calling me that!" the ninja barked, pulling himself onto the stone steps. "And it would've gone a lot easier if I hadn't had to swim with my armor on."

A seductive grin lit up the magician's face as he leaned forward. "You could have just taken your armor _off_, Kuro-rin."

Kurogane sputtered an incoherent reply, and Sakura was relieved to see Syaoran pulling himself onto dry land. "I didn't think you knew how to swim," she said, hoping his response would shed some light on his memories.

"Yeah. Last night, I remembered Fujitaka taking me to this country near the ocean. He already knew how to swim, so he taught me."

She smiled. She'd met Fujitaka hundreds of times since she'd first met Syaoran, and she'd interacted with him enough to know how much he loved sharing and discovering knowledge. It didn't surprise her at all that he'd teach Syaoran how to swim as soon as the opportunity arose.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Syaoran smiled, for a moment lost in the joy of the memory. Sakura's heart started beating faster. "Yes," he said. "I always liked learning new things, but swimming was especially fun. I can teach you, if you want."

Her heart swelled with a rush of hope. Suddenly, the salty waters seemed a lot less malignant. "I'd like that," she said, and Syaoran's answering grin made all the trials she'd faced so far seem worth it. _He's coming back to me. Bit by bit, he's coming back to me. _

"So," Fai said, turning to Mokona. "Do you sense any feathers in this world?"

The white creature nodded. "There is a feather, deep in the water."

"Well that's just great," Kurogane said. "Who's going to dive down there and get it?"

"I could," Syaoran said.

Kurogane scoffed. "You'd pass out and drown the minute you touched it. That would kind of defeat the purpose."

"Can't you swim, Kuro-pin?"

The ninja glowered at Fai. "Of course I can swim. But it's not my job to go looking for the damn thing. Besides, I've never been in water that deep. Why don't _you _do it?"

"Well, I'll certainly help, but we've got a lot of ocean to cover, and if I'm the only one looking, it could take _months _to find it."

Sakura stood. "I'll learn how to swim," she said, wringing out her hair. Water poured from the soaked strands as if from a faucet. "I'll do my best so we can move to the next world as soon as possible."

Kurogane's eyes flashed to hers, as if searching for something. Whatever he found, it must've been enough, because he looked out to sea a moment later. "Before we start searching, we'd better figure out what kind of world we've landed in. We should find out if the people are hostile, or if they know anything about the feather."

"And we should find a _bed_," Fai moaned, leaning back and staring at the cerulean sky. "That swim took a lot of energy out of me."

"Tch. You're just lazy."

Fai yawned, stretching like a cat. "Whatever you say, Kuro-pon."

"He's right," Sakura said. "We should get a feel for this world before we try anything dangerous. Besides, we're probably going to be here for at least a few days." _Maybe longer._ She frowned.

They squeezed the excess water out of their clothes and headed up the steps, keeping close as they assessed their surroundings. When they didn't see any people for several minutes, Sakura began to wonder if all the buildings were deserted. But the crowded town showed signs of recent habitation—flowerpots hung from stone fixtures embedded in the walls, every plant flourishing as if recently cared for. The flowers themselves were strange, unlike any Sakura had ever seen. Each petal wore a myriad of different colors, ranging from a bright blue to neon pink and other flamboyant hues. It was as if nature had taken an airbrush and sprayed it haphazardly over each of the blossoms, painting it with the precision of a toddler using a paintbrush for the first time.

The flowers lent color to the pale rocks that made up the wall, but Sakura could see, on every building, subtle details that spoke of exquisite craftsmanship—indents that suggested ships sailing over the open sea, darker streaks delineating fish and other underwater creatures, and even patchy sections of walls that gave the impression of shimmering waves.

"Look," Syaoran said, distracting her from her observations. "I see someone."

Sakura turned in the direction he was pointing and gaped at the woman strolling down the cobblestone street. Her hair flowed behind her, dark green like seaweed, and her arms were covered in a shiny substance that looked remarkably like fish scales. More striking than either of those features, however, were the translucent blue fins stretching from her elbow to her wrist. "Wow . . ."

"Weird," Kurogane said. Evidently, his voice was loud enough to carry, because the woman's head whipped around. Her eyes, strangely human despite her alien features, zeroed in on their group. Her lips parted slightly.

_Do we look as strange to her as she does to us? _Sakura wondered, unable to look away. The scales she'd assumed to be mere decoration flowed perfectly toward the juncture between her elbows and fins, too realistic to be an accessory. _Do _all _the people of this world look like this? _

The woman stepped toward them, then hesitated, eyes clouding with uncertainty.

"Hello there!" Fai called, waving. "We're a little lost. Can you tell us where we are?"

The woman blinked, cocking her head to the side like a confused puppy. When she processed Fai's sincerity, her shoulders relaxed. In a melodious voice, she said, "You're in the Sapphire Islands, of course."


	20. Trinkets and Flowers

_Author's Notes:_

_Spoilers through Ceres in this chapter, due to the last section being in Fai's POV. I intend to hint at everyone's back-stories more and more as the story progresses, until we actually _reach _the worlds where it matters, so be prepared for major spoilers._

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty<p>

"The Sapphire Islands?" Sakura echoed, staring at the scaled woman.

"Yes." The woman looked down at her, a strange expression crossing her streamlined face. When her brown eyes flickered to the rest of her companions, her puzzlement grew more pronounced. "Are you travelers of some sort?"

Sakura smiled. "Yes. We've come from very far away, and we were hoping to find out more about this place."

The woman frowned. "What happened to your fins?"

She blinked. "Fins?"

Kurogane groaned. Fai spoke. "Oh, we never had any."

If anything, his statement seemed to confuse the woman more. She raised her eyebrows—the same deep green as her hair—and glanced around, as if expecting someone to jump out and claim this was a prank of some sort. When no one did, she returned her attention to them. "Then how do you swim?"

Fai grinned. "A lot less gracefully than you do, I'm sure, Miss . . ."

"Anemone."

"Miss Anemone. I'm Fai D. Fluorite, and these are my friends, Sakura, Syaoran, and Kuro-pin."

"It's _Kurogane_. Look, we're not from around here, and we don't have fins, but we're looking for a place to stay until we can move on."

His bluntness seemed to ease Anemone's nerves. Sympathy shone in her dark eyes. "Since you don't have fins, you'll need a land-based home. There are no places available for rent above the surface, but I have a place you can stay." Her expression sharpened, her eyes turning hawk-like. "If I can trust you not to get into trouble."

"We promise," Sakura said, bowing. "We're only here to look for something we lost. We won't cause any trouble."

Anemone nodded. "This way, then." She turned, the movement as sinuous as a shark slicing through water. They followed, hurrying to keep up. Anemone was of height with Kurogane, taller than any woman Sakura had ever seen, and her scaly legs were nearly twice the length of her own.

Thankfully, it wasn't a far walk. Anemone stopped at one of the taller rectangular buildings. The perimeter was ringed with the same colorful flowers Sakura had noticed before. More plants hung down from pots on the windowsills, dripping green leaves and vibrant blue and white blossoms. Sakura stared. "Your house is beautiful."

For the first time, Anemone smiled. Her teeth looked like the points of a saw. "My parents were rich fish merchants," she said. "Theirs was one of the first buildings constructed above the surface."

"Are most buildings under the surface?"

Anemone unlocked the door and let it swing open. "Of course," she said. "Didn't you see them on your way in?"

"Oh, _that's _what those were," Fai said. "They were pretty."

"Our bodies are not well-suited to the surface world," Anemone said, stepping inside. Sakura followed, flanked by the others. The entryway opened up into a spacious living room. Windows allowed light to flood into the room, feeding dozens of potted plants of the same variety Sakura had seen outside. Several chairs ringed a fine wooden table near the southwest corner of the room, on top of which sat a bowl of some round fruit Sakura couldn't identify.

While she ogled, Anemone went on. "Most of us live underwater. Only the wealthiest can afford vacation homes above the surface, and even then, since most of our work takes place underwater, we don't come up here often. You may stay as long as you like."

"Thank you," Sakura said.

Anemone took a seat on one of the chairs, tilting her head back to look at the glass chandelier.

Fai poked her arm. "What do you think, Sakura-chan? Shall we explore?"

She smiled, already looking toward the spiral staircase on the edge of the room. "Let's go."

Syaoran followed her up the stairs. When they reached the second level, Sakura had to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle her squeal of delight.

The walls were comprised of thousands of small, colored stones, strategically placed to form a mosaic of dozens of colorful fish swimming over a coral reef. The deep blue background contrasted sharply with the focus of the mosaic, making the colors pop. This design framed the elegant circular bed pushed up against the wall. Most stunning of all, the headboard was sculpted in the shape of a shell and painted a soft pink, like the petals of a cherry blossom.

_This world is so beautiful, _Sakura thought, throwing herself onto the circular bed. The sheets moved like water over her skin. _Is this silk, or something else? _

Syaoran took a seat on the edge of the bed. Sakura rolled onto her back, surprised by his sudden proximity. Back in Clow, Syaoran had always been so careful to observe proper etiquette around her, no matter how many times she'd told him it was unnecessary.

_He doesn't know, _she thought, an twin pangs of sorrow and warmth shooting through her chest. _He doesn't understand social classes the way he used to. _

"If this is what the surface looks like, the underwater city must be even more amazing," Syaoran said, focused on the mural. "And the archeological marvels required to produce a society capable of surviving underwater . . . My father would love this place."

Sakura smiled. "How much do you remember of Fujitaka-san?"

"Some." A rueful look crossed Syaoran's face, but his amber eyes grew soft. "I remember that he died in an archeological dig, and that he cared about me very much, even though I'm not his biological son. He used to read to me at night, when I was first learning the language . . ." Syaoran trailed off, frowning. "That's all I remember, I think."

She waited for him to mention another memory, one where she'd been present, but where he would see only blankness. But he said nothing, only staring pensively at the wall, and after a minute, she decided to change the subject. "So, you said you were going to teach me how to swim. Do you think we could start that now?"

His face brightened. "Sure. Since you're looking for my feathers, I want to help however I can. I want to be useful."

She bit her lip and forced a smile. She didn't want him to think they each had some sort of usefulness quota to fill—if they did, she had some catching up to do, herself—but trying to explain to him that she only wanted him to act according to his free will was potentially dangerous. Until he had more of his memories back, she had to assume he didn't have a solid grasp of what was acceptable or not. Leaving him alone was dangerous.

Instead of trying to explain all that, Sakura lead the way to the spiral staircase. Fai passed them on the way down, coming from the third floor. "Look what I found," he said, holding out a piece of braided seaweed. Sakura examined it, noting the symmetry of each section. "I think it's a good luck charm of some sort. Or jewelry."

"It's pretty," she said, holding it up to the window so the sunlight played off the shiny material.

"I thought so, too. Are you two going swimming, then?"

"Yeah."

"Do you need me to come with, or will you be all right on your own?" His cerulean eyes flickered to Syaoran, who seemed more interested in the alternating patches of light and dark in the stone walls, and Sakura detected the real question behind Fai's words: _Are you sure he'll be able to hold himself together? _

"I think we'll be fine. Right, Syaoran?"

The brunette glanced over, seeming startled by her question. "Yeah. I mean, if that's all right." Suddenly, his face was unsure, his cheeks glowing pink as if he was afraid he'd somehow been impolite. _Right, _she thought. _He knows enough now to realize royalty isn't usually treated the same way as normal people._

She took his hand to prove to him that everything was all right, and tugged him toward the door. "We can just go to the edge of the island, and you can teach me what you remember about swimming.

He relaxed, seeming reassured by her touch. "All right."

In the sunshine, surrounded by air that tasted like salt, they walked to the ocean together.

* * *

><p>Fai spent the majority of the day picking through the various trinkets lying around the house. Anemone had told him he could look through whatever he wanted, since he was so new to this culture(he'd half-considered telling her he was new to this whole <em>world<em>, but that didn't seem prudent to mention considering he'd seen no evidence of inter-dimensional magic here).

Anemone's seashell collection was vast and pretty, but largely unremarkable. Without intimate knowledge of the fauna that had spawned such shells, Fai had little grasp of their purpose beyond the most basic inferences. What interested him more were the colorful flowers hanging from every surface in pots of soil obviously taken from some distant place. Ceres had few plants, given its frigid climate, but through books and pictures, he'd learned enough of the organisms to be fascinated by these small, cultivated pots.

"Do these flowers bloom year-round?" he asked, examining a neon-pink petal that had fallen onto the ground beneath one flowerpot.

"No, only in the summer," Anemone answered.

Fai examined the swollen buds of the soon-to-bloom flowers. _Then it must be early summer here. With a marine climate like this, though, there's probably minimal variance in temperature between the seasons. Most likely, summer lasts here as long as winter lasts in Ceres. _

The thought made him sad somehow. He'd always lived in cold places, both physically and metaphorically. In a world where summer might've stretched on most of the year, he felt alien, out of place.

"I have errands to run," Anemone said, rising from the dining room chair. Her seaweed-green hair tumbled down to her ankles, almost seven feet long. _As tall as Kuro-rin, _Fai thought, watching the scaled woman lope over to the door. She turned back to them just as she reached the door. "You can look around, but don't go in the water after dark. If you drift off, you won't be able to find your way back and you could drown."

Kurogane made a scornful sound from his seat across the room. Fai smiled warmly to cover up his companion's lack of etiquette. "All right. We'll keep that in mind. Have fun."

Anemone strode out the door, toting a bag that resembled a purse, made of a series of linked braids tethered together in a net. When the door closed, Fai turned to Kurogane. "We'll have to tell the kids not to stay out too late."

"If they don't have the sense to seek shelter after dark, they're not going to make it far in this journey."

Fai chuckled, waltzing over to the other side of the room and plopping down onto the curved couch. "You're so pessimistic, Kuro-rin. You act as if our kids aren't going to grow up in time."

"They're not _our _kids," the ninja snarled. "And I'm not going to baby-sit them."

When Fai spoke again, his voice was a bit subdued. "They already grow up so fast. It doesn't seem fair that they should have to grow up even faster."

Kurogane snorted. "Yeah, so what? A tough childhood turns you into a tough adult. Better for them if they deal with it now. Besides, I hardly consider _swimming lessons _tough."

"No," Fai said, reverting back to his usual cheer. _Have to lie, have to pretend nothing's amiss, otherwise he might start to see . . . _"But sometimes I wish they weren't quite so young. They shouldn't have to deal with this."

"But they do." Kurogane's voice dropped low. "They might not be able to handle all of it, but eventually, they'll figure out when to ask for help."

"I was rather under the impression that you didn't intend to help."

The ninja sighed, sinking deeper into the couch. "Guess it'd go faster if they didn't have to figure out everything on their own. And the boy doesn't have enough memories back to avoid doing stupid stuff, so someone will need to teach him basic skills to last until then."

"Aw," Fai cooed, taking the opportunity to extricate himself from the conversation. _Always hold back, always keep people at a distance. _"Just what I'd expect of Kuro-daddy."

Kurogane's head whipped around so fast, Fai actually flinched. "_What _did you just call me?"

_Good, _Fai thought, faking a laugh. _His anger will cloud his judgment. He won't see through my silliness. _

The ninja's eyes burned with barely leashed fury. With a sinuous motion, he rose from his seat and cracked his knuckles. A sadistic smile curved up his lips. "You bastard . . ."

Fai evaded a punch that could've shattered his nose, faking another laugh as he did so. When the ninja tried to compensate for his speed, Fai twirled out of the way, poking him in the ribs.

"Cut that out! Hold still so I can hit you."

_Smile. Laugh. _"But that looks like it would hurt, Kuro-tan."

Half an hour passed before the ninja gave up on trying to hit him and plopped down on the couch. His expression shifted from annoyance to cold calculation as he caught his breath. Fai's heart dropped.

"Here's what I don't get," Kurogane said, his gaze so piercing, Fai wondered if the man couldn't see right into his mind. "You gave up that tattoo, or whatever, to travel through different worlds, but you said you sent _yourself _to the witch. So why bother paying the price if you could just travel on your own?"

_This _was a lie Fai had prepared for, a lie he'd expected he'd need at some point. A lie that was partially the truth, but mostly a way to deflect his companion's suspicions. "I thought I told you, Kuro-rin: magic like that takes a lot of energy. Using that much energy every time I needed to change worlds would wear me out too fast."

"You mean you wouldn't be able to run away."

Fai flinched. Images flickered through his mind. Crimson splotches over white fabric, scarlet running down cracks in the tile, a discarded coat tossed aside and savaged by something with claws, his sleeping king under the water . . .

His panic must've shown on his face, because Kurogane pressed on.

"Whatever you're running from, it's got no place here. You'll have to face it eventually, so either deal with it, or tell us what's going on so it doesn't catch us by surprise later."

_Fake a smile, _he reminded himself. _People will believe you more often if you smile. _"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it too much right now. I don't expect it to become a problem for a _long _time."

Kurogane frowned. "Good," he said curtly. "See that it doesn't."


	21. Swimming Lessons

_Author's Notes:_

_Okay, so I'm not even going to bother being subtle about the spoilers from here on out. Some things will be changed of course, given the nature of this AU, but some things will definitely spoil the real manga. If you haven't finished reading the series, beware._

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-One<p>

Sakura tested the water with the tip of her toe, withdrawing almost immediately.

A few feet offshore, Syaoran treaded water, watching her. His eyes were alert, his movements sinuous and graceful in a way they couldn't be on land, but that didn't ease the quivering knot in her stomach. Sometimes, he fell asleep too suddenly to even make it to a chair or a bed. If he fell asleep in the water, with only her to aid him, he would drown.

Sakura knew all that, had acknowledged the necessity of learning to swim, but when her toes skimmed the water, all she could think about was how it would feel when the water rushed into her lungs.

"It's okay," Syaoran said, offering her a soft smile. "We won't go into deep water yet."

She bit her lip, trying to think of an excuse to delay her swimming lessons. "I . . . hold on. I'm not dressed properly for this."

"Oh." A blush crept over Syaoran's face, and he looked away, his movements becoming less fluid. "Um . . ."

Sakura turned away. "Just a second." She flitted to a shaded spot beside one of the cylindrical buildings, out of his sight. _I have to do this, _she told herself. _I have to get Syaoran's feathers back. I can't let something as simple as not being able to swim stop me. _She exhaled slowly, as Fai encouraged her to do just before she released an arrow. _But you failed at that, too, _whispered an insidious voice in the back of her mind. _You've missed your target every single time. What makes you think you can just pick up a skill like swimming in a day? You're slowing everyone down._

"Sakura-hime?" Syaoran called. She heard the sound of wet feet slapping the stone steps and froze.

"H-hold on! I'm almost done." She stripped off the pink and white cloak she usually wore. Underneath the cloak was a tank top that concealed her most intimate features, but even with that, she felt horribly exposed, baring so much skin. _Touya would've never allowed it, _she thought. _He'd say I'd get a sunburn. _

She sighed; she was old enough now to understand the real reason behind her brother's reservations. Revealing clothing drew the wrong kind of attention, especially for a princess.

But her underclothes were the closest things to a swimsuit that she owned, and after almost a minute of trying to convince herself that she'd look even more ridiculous wearing a sopping-wet cloak at the end of her lesson, she stepped out of the building's shadow and started toward Syaoran.

His eyes widened when he saw her, his tanned cheeks turning red as if he'd suddenly developed a sunburn. Less than a second passed before he jerked his head away, averting his gaze.

Sakura winced. "Is it . . . Is it that bad?"

"No!" The intensity of his reply seemed to startle him; he flinched, then went on in a quieter voice. "You look nice."

Warmth rushed to her cheeks. "You really think so?"

Syaoran nodded vigorously, still not looking at her. "Yes. I mean, you always look nice. But you look nice this way, too." He took a deep breath. "Do you want to start swimming now?"

"S-sure."

She followed Syaoran to the edge of the ocean, waiting to stick her foot in the water until he was waist-deep in it. When he looked back at her, she took another tentative step, submerging her ankles. The water was cooler than the baths she was used to, but warmer than the drinking water she'd always had at the castle. She managed to get knee deep in the water before the panic started to set in. "What if I start to drown?" she asked, retreating half a step and looking to Syaoran for guidance.

"You won't drown. We won't go too deep today." He approached, chest rising out of the water as he ascended the steps. When he was close, he held out both his hands, palms up. "I promise you'll be able to touch the bottom the whole time."

Hesitantly, she took his hands and let him guide her a few steps from the safety of the shore. The water crawled up her calves, touched her knees, then rose up her thighs. When she was waist-deep in saltwater, she realized she could feel the currents moving over her skin, pushing her in different directions. She stepped back, heart fluttering.

Syaoran smiled. "It's all right. Can you lift your feet so you aren't touching the bottom?"

She bit her lip. _I have to try. _She allowed one foot to leave the ground, then the other. Panic jolted through her as her body started sinking, and her legs kicked frantically, arms pulling her toward Syaoran as her feet sought a stable surface. When her heel grazed the edge of one of the steps, she planted her feet there, the rest of her body going rigid.

"Easy," Syaoran murmured, tugging gently on her hands to pull her into deeper water. "One more step."

Sakura bit her lip and stepped down, letting the cool water caress her spine. She took a deep breath.

Syaoran paused, meeting her eyes. "We can stay here for a while. Just breathe."

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing. She could still feel Syaoran's hands against hers, his palms warmer than the water around them. She let her fingertips trace the hardened calluses on his palms, curious. Reading probably couldn't cause that kind of toughness, even the excessive reading that Syaoran sometimes indulged in. Perhaps the calluses were from the more hands-on research he'd done with his father when they'd been traveling. Hands like his seemed to indicate either great experience or a hard life, and Sakura knew his life in Clow, at least, hadn't been exceptionally strenuous.

She opened her eyes to catch him staring at their hands. She let go, realizing how long she'd been contemplating them. Her arms moved sluggishly through the water, but the shift threw her off-balance. She started to fall backwards, the water sliding up her spine and consuming everything up to her neck. Her arms flailed, splashing water everywhere.

Embarrassment turned to horror as water rushed over her skin. Her eyelids squeezed shut, mouth closing as fingers of saltwater raked the sides of her face. Her lungs seized up, panic lancing through her heart like an arrow.

A hand wrapped around the back of her head, holding her face above the water. An arm coiled around her abdomen, supporting the rest of her body. "Sakura-hime?" Syaoran said, his voice rising with panic. "Are you all right?"

She didn't think she could move any part of her body, so she just stayed rigid in his arms for a few seconds, trying to remember how to breathe. When she finally managed it, a wild gasp broke through her teeth, and her hand snaked out, clamping down over Syaoran's shoulder. "Don't let go."

He pulled her closer. "I won't, but . . ."

"But _what_?" she demanded, eyes darting around in search of a threat.

"You're floating."

She blinked. "What?"

Syaoran relaxed his hold slightly, just enough for her to realize he wasn't supporting her weight so much as making sure she didn't sink under the surface.

"I'm floating," she murmured, still paralyzed. "I'm really floating."

"Yeah."

She released his shoulder, letting her fingertips trail down his arms in a silent plea for him to stay close. His hand traced the back of her neck, as if assuring her that he intended to remain at her side. "See? I knew you could do it."

Sakura closed her eyes and took a shallow breath, trying to remember the descriptions of swimming she'd read in books. Uncertainly, she kicked her feet, keeping her toes pointed away from her. Her body skimmed across the surface, disturbing ripples of seawater.

"That's good," Syaoran said, keeping close to her. When she opened her eyes this time, she saw him smiling at her. "I think you're getting it."

Sakura couldn't help but smile back.

"After you get the hang of this, you can learn how to swim under the surface."

She lost her smile. _Oh my . . . _"Not yet," she pleaded. "I like things the way they are now."

"Yeah . . . I like it, too . . ."

The slur in his voice gave her less than a second of warning. She tried to right herself, almost sinking completely under before her toes brushed against the stone steps. "Syaoran?"

He met her gaze for just a moment, pupils dilated so only a thin ring of amber was visible around the black, before his head disappeared under the water.

"_Syaoran_!"

* * *

><p>Fei Wong Reed watched his pawns struggle in the water.<p>

"Should we intervene?" Xing Huo asked, voice devoid of all emotion.

Fei Wong picked up the glass of red wine sitting on the table beside him, watching the scene develop. When the desert princess pulled the boy's head above the surface, he relaxed. "No. It's under control."

He took a sip of his wine. The taste spread across his tongue, a sweet wine with cranberry undertones. He set the glass aside and rose from his chair, joints cracking as they stretched. With the deliberate pace of a hunter stalking its prey, he crossed the vast room and observed another set of images, this one of his blond magician and the witch's hot-headed ninja. The pair was moving about their temporary home, chatting and cooking. Or rather, the magician was chatting and cooking. The red-eyed man was merely watching him, perhaps analyzing the wizard's too-relaxed actions.

Fei Wong didn't believe he'd made a mistake in who he'd chosen for this task—the blond wizard had been so malleable, so easy to manipulate once he'd brought up his twin. He'd intended to bring the ninja to his side as well, but the witch had intervened with one of her own before he could act, and so the party was split between what he'd wanted and what he'd wanted to avoid.

Behind him, Xing Huo spoke. "Do you think the ninja will discover the wizard's origins before we're ready?"

"No," he said, turning away and marching back to his chair. "The wizard acts frivolous, but he knows what's at stake. I'm more concerned about losing one of the images prematurely." He peered into the looking glass, watching as the desert princess pulled the boy's limp body from the water. "I'd planned to use the girl's body for this. The boy would make a much better guardian if their fates were reversed, but things didn't turn out as I intended. It makes no difference. The girl will grow strong enough to bear the burden, and so long as I keep them from the more dangerous worlds, I expect little trouble."

"Do you think the boy will realize—"

He cut her off. "Not yet. Even if he did, he doesn't know enough to understand what he is." His eyes strayed to the glass tube standing on the other side of the room, checking on the figure inside. The body seemed completely inert. "The seal will hold long enough. By the time it breaks, my plan will have reached a stage too advanced to stop."

Xing Huo stared at the looking glass for a moment. His eyes flickered to her expressionless face.

One day, he knew, he'd have to dispose of his black-haired assistant. But not yet. Not until her inevitable betrayal.

Fei Wong Reed sat down in his chair and turned his attention back to the looking glass.


	22. Promises

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Syaoran? _Syaoran_!"

He gave no indication that he'd heard her as his head sank under the water, eyes closed in unconsciousness. Sakura's heel scraped against the stone steps as she scrambled over to him. Blood rose in pale red wisps from her foot, spreading as she struggled to swim to the unconscious boy.

Bubbles rose to the surface where Syaoran had slipped under the water. _No, _she thought. _He can't drown. He can't drown, I need him. _Her hand shot forward, reaching for anything she could grab onto. As her feet flailed, she realized she'd strayed too far from the shore; she couldn't touch the bottom anymore. _I shouldn't have asked for his help. I should've asked Fai-san to teach me. I should've known this would happen. _

As she drifted, her outstretched hand brushed against Syaoran's skin. Saltwater lapped up against her face.

She took a deep breath and ducked underwater.

Her eyes burned when she opened them, vision blurring. A few feet away, she saw the tan shape of Syaoran's submerged body. When she reached for him this time, her fingers wrapped around his arm. She pulled him close, kicking furiously to get back to the surface. _I won't let you die, _she thought, turning her face up to see the sun dancing across the surface of the water. _Even if I have to drown, I won't let you die. _

With one final shove, she pushed him to the surface. His body jerked when he hit fresh air, hands clawing at the surface.

Sakura watched from below, head spinning. Even with the deep breath she'd taken before going down, she was running out of oxygen.

_Fai's not here. There's no one to save you this time. You're going to drown for real._

The tropical water suddenly felt a lot colder. Above her, Syaoran struggled to right himself. From the way he moved, she could tell he was still too disoriented to swim to shore.

Vision spotty, limbs clumsy, Sakura sank deeper into the water. Despite her steady descent, her body felt weightless. Her lungs seized up, demanding oxygen. Currents stirred her underclothes, caressing her skin. A part of her wished she'd been born with fins, like the people of this world.

Her bleeding heel brushed against the stone steps wrapped around the island. There, she crumpled, kneeling as the water pressed down on her body.

_If I die, who's going to make sure Syaoran gets his memories back? _She opened her eyes. She had to live, and the only way to do that was to save herself. The muscles in her legs bunched up, then extended. She shot toward the light, arms shooting above her head so her hands sliced through the water. Her feet flattened out, displacing water as she kicked. Her fingertips broke the surface first, and her momentum carried her the rest of the way. As soon as her lips hit the air, she gasped.

Syaoran was awake again, but disoriented, coughing wildly to expel the water from his lungs. Sakura kicked her legs, trying to stay afloat as she caught one of his flailing arms. "Sy—" She wheezed, vision still spotty from the lack of oxygen. She tugged on his arm, swimming toward the shallow water. "Syaoran, come _on_."

Perhaps it was luck, or perhaps it was Hitsuzen, but despite his apparent panic, Syaoran's struggles pulled them toward the shore. When her feet brushed up against the stone steps again, she was able to tow him the last few feet to shore. They crawled onto the dry stone, panting. Syaoran retched, a torrent of water pouring from his throat.

She realized she had no idea what to do now. "Breathe!" she yelled, hoping some instinct would kick in and he'd start breathing normally. Instead, he doubled over and started coughing again.

"I'll get Fai-san," she said. _Don't die, please don't die . . . _

His only response was to continue choking. Sakura bolted toward the house they were staying in, praying her companions hadn't left. The building wasn't far from the shore, but in her panic, the journey felt like miles. Her feet stung as they slapped across the ground.

Luck was with her. Fai was already outside, admiring the colorful plants she'd seen after they'd arrived here. Alarm flashed across his face when he heard her coming. "What's wrong?"

"Fai-san, Syaoran fell asleep in the water!"

His alarm sharpened to urgency. Before she even made it to the porch, he was running toward the shore. Sakura pointed to where she'd left Syaoran. "I got him to shore, but I think he's choking."

Behind her, she heard Anemone's door opening. Kurogane's voice sliced through the air. "What the hell is all this noise about?"

She didn't even glance back. "Syaoran's in danger."

Her lungs were burning by the time she saw Syaoran curled up beside the ocean. Water dripped from his clothes, his skin, his hair, and he wheezed.

Fai reached Syaoran first. He threw himself to the ground and lifted Syaoran's head, looking straight into his eyes. "Syaoran-kun?"

No answer. Fai released his head, letting it droop as Syaoran sputtered up what seemed to be a pint of water. Sakura blanched. _I wasn't fast enough. He's going to choke to death. _Despair lanced through her heart. Her arms, exposed, wrapped around her torso, as if she could stave off the horror of that revelation.

"I think he's going into shock," Fai said grimly.

_It was all for nothing. _Her knees buckled, scraping the ground as they hit and leaving a raw, bloody swath over her kneecap. _All this, and I couldn't do a thing to help him._

She closed her eyes.

A shadow fell over her face, accompanied by the sound of shoes hitting the ground. "Move."

She lifted her head at Kurogane's voice, too wrung out to be surprised that he'd followed them to the shore. Fai moved out of the way as Kurogane took his place. The ninja looked at Syaoran for a long moment, the seconds slipping by like syrup from a bottle. Then, moving as if he did this every day, he slammed the heel of his hand against Syaoran's back, right between his shoulder blades. A torrent of water spewed from his mouth as his head snapped up. A strangled gasp whistled down his throat, the first real breath he'd had since he'd gone under.

Hope flared in her chest. "Syaoran-kun?"

His face contorted in agony, but at least he was breathing instead of choking. The heart-wrenching anguish faded from her body as she crawled over to his side, wrapping her arms around his heaving chest.

Kurogane sighed. "You people really don't know anything, do you?"

"Where did you learn that?" she asked, ignoring his comment.

The ninja arched an eyebrow. "It's common sense," he said. When she winced, he revised his answer. "I guess it makes more sense if you grew up around water."

Fai spoke, his voice much less tense than a moment ago. "So your home world had a lot of water, right, Kuro-pon?"

"That's not my—" Abruptly, the ninja closed his mouth and turned back to Syaoran. "We had lakes and ponds and hot springs. People knew how to swim before they knew how to dress themselves."

"You're so talented, Kuro-pu. Swordsmanship _and _swimming?"

"Can you be serious for five seconds?" the ninja demanded. "The kid could've _died._"

_That _seemed to shock Fai out of his good cheer. Sakura watched a shadow fall across his face, feeling as if the ground beneath her had turned to water; the words had flipped a switch in the man's mind, making him cold, unresponsive.

She shuddered.

A moment later, Fai's smile returned, replacing the dark look of a moment ago. "There," he said. "I was serious for five whole seconds. Do I get a prize?"

"Yes," Kurogane said sourly. "I've decided not to punch you for being an idiot." The ninja paused, nudging her arm. Uncertainly, Sakura released Syaoran and drew back. Without another word, Kurogane scooped him up, carrying him like a sleeping child. Syaoran groaned in protest, coughing weakly. "I'll bring him back to the house. Gather up whatever you brought down here and hurry back."

She rose to her feet, casting one final glance at Syaoran's face and the ninja carried him away. Then, heartsick, she went over to the place where she'd stashed her gown. As she clutched the dry fabric against her chest, she felt a hand brush against her shoulder. She turned to meet Fai's eyes. "He'll be fine, Sakura-chan. You don't have to be so upset."

Her head drooped. "I know. I'm glad." At least, she knew she _should _be glad. Yet if it hadn't been for Kurogane, her inexperience would've cost Syaoran his life. She'd known Syaoran could fall asleep in the water, but she'd ignored the possibility, not even planning for disaster. It had been reckless and stupid, and she felt horrible for not doing something to prevent it.

Her thoughts must've been written all over her face, because Fai picked up on them immediately. "You're still learning. You're not going to have all the skills you need to face what's coming, but it's okay to rely on us. I'll help you with anything, and so will Kuro-tan, even though he'll complain about it. You have people to help you. We'll be able to handle anything that comes our way."

His eyes were bright, open, honest . . . and she didn't believe him. "Kurogane-san said that Syaoran could've died."

The cheer evaporated from his face, just as it had before. Sakura went on. "He was right. I didn't know what to do, except ask for help. If you two had been out stocking up, if I hadn't been able to find you, Syaoran really _would_ have died."

A brittle smile graced Fai's lips. "Nothing bad happened to him."

"You're wrong!" she yelled. The force of her reply made Fai flinch. She continued in a quieter voice. "You're wrong. I can't put his life in jeopardy again. I could never live with myself if something happened to him because of me, so . . ." She looked up, her features smoothing out into an expression her brother referred to as her "queenly face." She folded her hands in front of her body, still holding onto her gown. "This world seems relatively safe. I want to spend some time here, learning things that will help me prepare for whatever challenges lie ahead of us. Archery, swimming, magic . . . plus whatever else I might need. And I'm going to need your help with that."

Fai bowed. Despite the sweeping motion of his arm, the display looked oddly formal. His voice, too, was dignified. "I would be honored to teach you; however, I won't be able to perform any magic. I traded away my means to do so as payment for Mokona. I can explain things to you, but what you can do with it will rest on your shoulders."

She nodded. _I'll do whatever it takes to keep Syaoran alive, no matter how hard it is. _"As princess of Clow and heir to the kingdom, I am grateful for your offer." She returned his bow. "I will do everything I can to learn from you."

When she rose from her bow, she saw that Fai was smiling again. It was less exuberant than most of his smiles, but his eyes twinkled like moonlight pouring through stained glass. It put her at ease again.

"Let's go back," she said. "I want to make sure Syaoran's all right."

Fai pretended to whistle. She donned her gown, ignoring the fact that her underclothes were still dripping wet from the ocean. Tomorrow, she'd go out and buy clothes more fitting for this country and work on skills that would keep her alive long enough to retrieve Syaoran's memories. Tomorrow.


	23. Archery Lessons

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Really, I'm fine."

Sakura's hands flitted through the air above his bed, as if searching for a way to ease the constant ache in his body. Her hair stuck up in disorganized tufts, the product of almost a full day of lessons with Fai, and a faint sunburn had formed over her cheeks, like a perpetual blush.

Syaoran wondered how she'd gotten a sunburn after just a few days here when she'd lived her whole life in a desert._  
><em>

"I'm sorry," she said. Her apologies had become a sort of litany, varying in their wording but never straying from their meaning. "I shouldn't have asked for your help."

He tried not to show her how much that last part bothered him. It would've been rude to disagree, though he'd been glad to help her even with something as mundane as learning how to swim. _She always says she doesn't know how to do this, but I can't even stay awake, _he thought. "It's fine," he told her.

The princess shook her head, then opened her mouth as if to apologize again. Kurogane interrupted before she could. "I think he gets it."

"Oh, but . . ." Sakura looked down, then smiled. Warmth radiated from that smile, easing the lingering pain in his lungs. "Right. I guess I should be focusing on finding your feathers, huh?"

There was no resentment in her tone—Syaoran couldn't _imagine _Sakura resenting someone—but the reminder that she was spending her time searching for his feathers when she was the princess of a country was . . . unsettling. How could he possibly be so valuable to her or her country that she'd personally escort him across countless dimensions? Who was he to her?

He didn't understand, and he felt horrible knowing that he couldn't do anything to ease her burden.

Sakura left, Fai close on her heels. Much to Syaoran's surprise, Kurogane stayed, watching them disappear before leaning against the curved wall and closing his eyes. There he stood, arms crossed, a dark statue contrasting sharply with the colorful mosaic behind him. Syaoran watched him for a moment, then spoke. "I'm sorry."

The ninja's eyelids slid open just enough for Syaoran to see the dark red color of his eyes. "For what?"

"You carried me back, and you've been taking care of me while Sakura-hime is busy learning. I didn't mean to trouble you."

Kurogane snorted. "If you're going to be sorry, don't put yourself in situations where something like that is going to happen."

Syaoran glanced up again, gauging the ninja's sincerity. There was a wry twist to the words, beneath the annoyance, but from what little Syaoran remembered, the appropriate response to an apology was forgiveness, or acceptance. The ninja's reaction threw him for a moment, and he looked away, certain he'd drawn the wrong conclusion _Even now, I still don't know enough to make it through an hour without misunderstanding something. _Vague as some of his memories were, he'd realized his misunderstandings of culture and people had been considerably less frequent before he'd started traveling. With a sort of rueful certainty, he knew others had once seen him as intelligent and insightful. _How must I look now, not even knowing where I came from, or who mattered to me before this journey? _

"You're brooding."

His neck snapped up. "Huh?"

Kurogane sighed. "Look, what happened yesterday wasn't anybody's fault. There's nothing you can do now to change it, so stop worrying."

"I wasn't really thinking about yesterday," he murmured. "That's not the only problem. I can barely function as a person right now. I still don't understand half of what's going on, even though I _know _I used to be smarter than this. I don't know how to make it so I won't be a burden to Sakura-hime."

"Grow strong," Kurogane said simply, starting for the door. "Survive and grow strong enough to handle things on your own."

"How do I grow strong?" Syaoran called as the ninja walked through the doorway.

Kurogane chuckled, as if enjoying some inside joke, then headed downstairs without answering.

* * *

><p>"Try again," Fai said, crouching down beside her and staring at the cloth target he'd constructed. Sakura positioned another arrow and pulled the string back slowly, trying to keep her weapon steady. Mokona had conjured up her bow after she'd left Syaoran's room, having stored it away prior to jumping dimensions.<p>

When she'd pulled the bowstring as far back as her strength allowed, she took aim. As she struggled to remember the weapon's tendencies, she was forced to admit that she'd been neglecting practice. Fai had already set a daily schedule for her, having taken his new role as her tutor with surprising seriousness.

It was late afternoon now, which meant it was time for archery practice. Fai had promised they'd integrate magic into these lessons once she was able to reliably hit the target, but while he claimed that there were spells to ensure that each arrow hit its mark, he'd fended off all her questions by claiming she had to learn things without magic first.

Now, an hour and a half in, she felt frustrated and despondent. As her last arrow flew wide of the target and struck the stone wall behind it, her arms fell limp at her side.

"Don't get discouraged," Fai said, smiling. Throughout most of the lesson, his face had been smooth and serious, so for once, his smile actually caught her off guard. She tried to smile back, but the expression felt foreign on her face, and faded by the time she'd gathered up her first arrow. As she stooped down to pick up another, she caught sight of the splintered shaft attached to the stone arrowhead.

"It broke."

Fai plucked the narrow shaft from her hand and examined it. "We'll fix this later tonight."

"With magic?"

He nodded. Her heart lifted slightly. Yuzuriha's arrows wouldn't go to waste, then.

She finished collecting the arrows and placed them all in her quiver except for the broken one, which Fai held onto. She headed back to the line Fai had drawn on the stone(she still couldn't figure out _why _he'd had a piece of chalk in his coat. Was it a magic thing?).

"We'll do one more practice round, then we'll go back in."

She nodded. The afternoon was beginning to wane, the sun staining the clouds a deep pink as it sank beneath the horizon. The ocean shimmered where the sunlight fell, dozens of colors blending together in fleeting, kaleidoscopic patterns.

If there hadn't been so much to do, Sakura might've spent weeks admiring this world. As it was, all her waking hours for the next few days would be devoted to improving her skills so she could search for this world's feather.

The next round went no better than the four dozen that had preceded it. Arms aching, Sakura raised her bow and pulled on the string. The quivering in her hands translated to her weapon, which threw off her aim. When she released the arrow, it landed short, rebounding off the ground before piercing the lower left corner of the target.

"A little higher," Fai said. "Breathe out when you shoot. It will steady your aim."

She took a deep breath, then positioned her next arrow. She exhaled, then inhaled again as she pulled the bowstring back. The thin, flexible string dug into her fingertips, and already, she'd noticed the calluses forming there, like the ones that had formed when her father had made her learn how to play the koto.

This arrow, along with the next three, missed the target altogether. The one after that hit low and to the right, and she tried to adjust from there, hoping to get somewhere near the bull's-eye. Only two of her arrows struck the target at all, the rest striking the wall, or the ground. When she lowered her bow, she couldn't stop the sigh that left her mouth.

"That was pretty good," Fai said. "This target is actually a little smaller than the one we were using in that country with the spas, so don't worry if you don't hit it all the time."

"Okay." She went ahead to start picking up her arrows, glad to finally be done with this part of her practice.

"Why don't we stop back at Anemone's house and get something to eat? You must be awfully hungry by now."

She shrugged. She'd picked a piece of fruit from one of Anemone's wooden bowls on her way out, so her stomach wasn't cramping yet, but she _did _want a break.

The others were already downstairs when they entered. Sakura hurried forward. "Syaoran, you should still be resting. It's only been a day."

He set aside the book he'd been reading, leaving the spine facing up so he didn't lose his page. "It's okay. I'm feeling a lot better."

"That's good, but . . ." _But what? I can't claim reading is too stressful for him right now, especially since he loved it so much before. _"You can read this world's language?"

The chandelier's lights glinted in his amber eyes as he smiled. "Yeah. It's strange, because I don't remember _learning _this language, and it's not the language I'm used to, but somehow, I know how to read it."

She bit her lip, trying to hold back the hope swelling in her chest. If he remembered languages without remembering the events that had allowed him to learn them, perhaps he'd remember, subconsciously, how they'd interacted before he'd lost his feathers. It was, she told herself, a vain hope. Yuuko had claimed he would have no memory of her whatsoever—she had to assume that also meant their easy understanding of each other had disappeared as well. _We're starting from scratch, but one day, I'll be able to tell him I love him, and he'll be able to say it back._

"Has Kuro-pii made any dinner for us?" Fai trilled. Sakura watched the annoyance flicker across the other man's face, but it wasn't the raw anger she'd seen the first few days of their journey. It seemed that the ninja had grown almost immune to Fai's teasing.

"No, and I'm not _going _to make dinner. I already spent the day babysitting, so forget it."

Syaoran's head snapped up. "Babysitting?"

Kurogane sighed. "Never mind."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to do it," Fai said, twirling toward the brick oven embedded in the wall. "Hmm . . . This should work. I know—I'll make croissants with jelly filling."

Kurogane cocked his head to the side, as if the cooking terminology confused him. Given Fai's taste in food, the ninja's confusion was probably for the best. Fai was a wonderful cook, but everything he made was either full of sugar, or some sort of pastry. Or both. Usually both.

Sakura sat down on the couch and closed her eyes, glad to finally have a moment to rest. The muscles in her arms were trembling with overuse, and she could only pray that whatever magic lesson Fai had planned for her tonight wouldn't require much physical strength. _His magic will probably be different from the magic I know. I might not even be able to learn it. _

Worry nagged at her, but soon yielded to her fatigue, the anxiety slipping away from her mind as the scent of pastries filled her nose.

She must've fallen asleep at some point, because it seemed like only moments before a warm pressure on her lap jerked her back into reality. She blinked rapidly, then looked down. Syaoran sat on the floor by the couch, watching her. On her lap, there was now a plate of jelly-filled croissants. "Did you . . ."

Syaoran smiled. "Fai-san's hands were covered in jelly, so he asked me to bring this to you."

Warmth flooded her chest. A smile bloomed on her face without a conscious thought. "Thank you, Syaoran. That was nice of you."

"I want to help," he said. "Even if it's only a small thing, I want to make this easier for you."

"You don't have to do anything for me. I can handle this."

"I'm not doing it because I feel indebted to you, although I do. I want to make you happy."

Heat rose to her cheeks, and she lifted the first croissant to her mouth while she struggled to come up for a response. Warm jelly poured across her tongue, the taste similar to strawberries, but more exotic. She squeaked in surprise. "These are delicious!"

"It's a famous recipe where I come from," Fai said from across the room. "Though I had to substitute some ingredients, since this world doesn't have all the same foods."

"They turned out wonderfully, Fai-san," she said, disregarding years of palace etiquette as she bit off a huge chunk of the pastry.

She finished quickly, before everyone else, and set her plate on the counter.

"I'll be out in a minute," Fai called from the kitchen, snacking on his second croissant. "Go ahead without me."

"Okay." She hurried outside and headed back to the target Fai had set up for her archery lesson, not knowing where else to go. She stopped there, looking back at the house for the moment. The lights twinkled through the windows, brighter than the darkening streets. Far away, she could hear the sound of waves lapping up against the steps leading to the island.

It was quiet, but the waves provided enough background noise to keep the peaceful atmosphere from turning eerie. She let all her frustration drain out of her, then turned toward the target she'd shot at for almost two hours. _I can do this. I have to do this._

She removed her bow from the sash on her back and plucked an arrow from her quiver. Her hands had steadied some during dinner, so when she pulled back on the bowstring, her muscles didn't tremble.

She breathed in, exhaled, and let her arrow fly.

As it sailed through the air, she marveled at the way the projectile blurred with its speed, like a bird in flight. The arrowhead pierced the target, the feathered end vibrating with the force of the impact.

_Bull's-eye._

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes:<em>

_The "joke" Kurogane is thinking of at the end of the first section is actually in reference to Tomoyo's edict for him to learn the meaning of true strength. Syaoran doesn't know enough to make the connection, so the humor is lost on him(ah, the faults of 3__rd__ person limited POV). I also referenced the first world Sakura's group visited in this story, when Yuzuriha gave her the bow and arrows, but it's been long enough since that arc that I thought I should mention that here to reduce confusion. Additionally, the idea of Fai setting a daily schedule for Sakura actually came from something I recently started doing, which was scheduling myself separate writing time for my fan fiction and my original fiction. Over the past few days, I've actually been able to write more of _both _varieties, and this chapter was crafted in one of these scheduled blocks. I am happily surprised to find that making a schedule is an effective way of conquering laziness, which I often suffer from._

_ Anyway, thanks to all of you who read and review. Your comments really help me refine my craft, so I'm grateful for all the feedback. We'll be in this world for at least a few more chapters, as this is my fan-fic equivalent of Outo(though we will probably visit Outo later, for different reasons), so if you have any suggestions pertaining to the setting or my portrayal of it, I'm happy to hear them. _


	24. Fillets

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sakura was staring at the target when Fai arrived.

He might've announced his presence except for the look of utter _shock _on her face. Instead, he followed her gaze, then suppressed a gasp of his own.

One of her arrows stuck out of the center of the target, having pierced the bright red bull's-eye. It had penetrated almost six inches into the layers of seaweed cushioning the back of the target. _Did that happen just now? _he wondered, eyes flitting back to Sakura's face. Eyes wide, mouth ajar, she was the perfect image of surprise. In her hands, she held the wooden bow Yuzuriha had given her in the first world they'd fallen into.

Fai pushed own his shock aside and brought his hands together in applause. Sakura jumped, a squeak of surprise breaking through her lips. When she saw him, her lips curled up into a smile. "Fai-san, look!"

He strolled over and knelt beside the target. "Nice shot."

"Well, it was sort of an accident," she admitted. "I think it was mostly luck."

_Luck, _he thought, tracing the wooden shaft with his fingertip. _Yes, quite a bit of luck. _He rose from his crouch. "Are you always so lucky?"

"Not with archery."

_I__nteresting. _"But with other things? Like games or other random events?"

"Yes." Surprise flitted across her face, as if she'd never considered her luck to be unusual.

_Perhaps it isn't strange for her. Perhaps it's innate. Is it her luck that's kept her safe so far? _He studied her for a moment, trying to detect some subtle magic, but he couldn't feel anything apart from her normal aura.

"So," she said, breaking the silence. "Are we going to work on learning magic now?"

"Yes." He glanced around, then pointed toward the middle of the island. They'd purchased clothes and other amenities in the market this afternoon, before they'd started archery practice, and though it hadn't been busy, he'd isolated a few places that were fit for magic training. "This way."

They made their way to a circular fountain in the middle of the marketplace. He perched himself on the lip of the structure and pulled a coin pouch from his belt. Like Ceres, the Sapphire Islands used different coins as their currency. It was one of the few familiar things he'd come across in this tropical paradise.

"Where did you get those?" Sakura asked, indicating the coins.

"Anemone let me borrow them. We're going to use them for our lesson." He poured the contents of the pouch onto the ground. "This is a common magic exercise in my world. Focus your magic on these coins and try to lift them into the air."

She stepped forward and held her hands in front of her body. Her eyes hardened with focus, her smile fading under the intensity of her concentration. Her fingers flexed.

The coins didn't move.

After about a minute, Fai interrupted. "Have you ever tried moving something with your mind before?"

"No. Am I doing something wrong?"

Fai looked at the coins, then back at her. "Sakura-chan, how many people in your country can use magic?"

"Um . . . A few. The High Priest, my parents, and me. Maybe a few other people, too, but it's a rare gift."

_If it's that rare, that could explain why her power is so limited. _He considered that. For her to survive this journey, she'd need every advantage available to her. At the same time, the more powerful she became, the more at risk she was. _I'll have to leave before she exceeds my power, but it'll be a while before that happens. I can afford to teach her some things. _

"Is something wrong, Fai-san?"

He smiled. "No, just thinking about something."

A slight change in the set of her mouth alerted him to her doubt. _Why wouldn't she doubt you? You've got enough problems to run from. You have to learn to hide them better or you're not going to be able to run at all. _

Fai switched tactics, hoping to hit on something she was familiar with. "Would you describe the magic of your world as internal or external?"

She blinked. "Um . . . I'm not sure what you mean."

"Does your magic only affect you, or can it be used to affect other things?"

Her voice grew soft, uncertain. "It depends. I was able to heal Touya-san from the world with the hot springs, and I made a magic shield for myself in Koryo. I've been able to . . . communicate with things since I was young. I know when things are sad, or when they're crying." She closed her eyes. "I used to do purification rituals in the reservoir in the ruins, but I'm not sure if that counts as _magic_."

Fai nodded. "So would you say most of your powers are passive? That you do them without thinking?" _Because that would explain the bull's-eye._

"A lot of them. Is that . . . bad?"

"No, no . . . Most magic is unconscious, when you first start out. This exercise will be good for teaching you how to willfully control things, but let's start with something easier." He bent down and scooped most of the coins back into the pouch. Then, he handed a single coin to Sakura. "Keep your palms open and try to focus your magic toward this coin. Eventually, it will start floating. Probably."

"What if it doesn't?"

He shrugged. "That might mean your magic is just different from mine." _And if it's that different, I'm going to be useless as a magic teacher. _

Sakura looked at the gold coin, eyebrows slanting downward. Fai could feel the subtle disturbance of her aura, the way it rippled over her skin as she tried to manipulate the coin. "Breathe. It's like archery. It takes practice, and you won't get the results you want right away."

An indent formed between her eyebrows. He considered reaching out with his own magic, guiding her as his tutors had guided him after he'd arrived in Ceres, but the thought of using magic without his tattoo was enough to hold him back.

Progress was slow. When the coin still hadn't moved after fifteen minutes, Sakura let out a breath. "Are you sure I'm doing this right?"

"You and I come from two different worlds, so I can't be positive. Every culture uses magic differently—at least, every culture that has magic. It's possible this won't work for you the same way it worked for me."

She nodded, banishing the distress from her face as she squinted at the coin. Her magic wavered and moved, some of it gathering in her hands, the rest dissipating before it could do her any good.

"In Ceres, we had a system of runes used for casting magic. You probably won't be able to use them until you've learned the basics, but if you want to take a break, I can teach you the letters."

She shook her head. "I want to learn this first. But if you want to go, I can practice it here, on my own."

The edge in her voice made him yearn to comfort her, to tell her that he was here to help her. And he was. But a part of him wanted her magic to remain weak, so it wouldn't trigger his curse. _Does that make me a coward? _he wondered, rising from the edge of the fountain. _I can't become too attached to these people, not when I'll eventually have to betray them, but am I a coward for wanting to leave this alone? _

Sakura's green eyes tracked his movements, her focus drifting from the coin in her hand as he stood. There was something like surprise in her expression, as if she'd dismissed him without considering the possibility that he'd actually go.

_All I've ever done is run away, _he thought, forcing a smile. He'd been faking smiles long enough to know that this one appeared rueful, but believable. "Syaoran-kun will love to see that once you've mastered it," he said, knowing that was the best form of motivation he could provide for her. "It just takes some practice to get right. You think you'll be fine out here if I head back?"

Sadness flickered across her face; she looked at the coin in her hand. "Sure."

He almost stopped, almost asked her if she'd rather have him stay. Instead, he turned away and headed back to Anemone's vacation home.

* * *

><p>"Where's Sakura-hime?" Syaoran asked, when Fai walked through the door without her.<p>

"She's still practicing. It's going to be a while before she gets back."

Worry shot through Syaoran's chest. "Will she be all right, out there in the dark?"

Fai smiled. "I'm sure she'll be fine. This world seems relatively safe, and I don't think she has any intention of going near the water, so she won't drown. There's nothing to worry about."

Syaoran forced himself to sink back into the couch cushions. Sakura's memories were in tact, so she was probably a lot safer out there than he would've been, yet he couldn't keep himself from worrying about her.

Across the room, Kurogane spoke. "How long is this magic training going to take?"

"A while," Fai said. "Why? Do you have someone _special _waiting for you back home?"

"_No. _I've got duties to attend to, and I need to talk to Tomoyo about why she sent me away."

"I was rather under the impression that you were getting a little too wild, and she sent you away to cool off for a while."

Kurogane snorted.

Syaoran leaned against the back of the couch, letting them banter for a bit. According to Sakura, he hadn't recovered enough to wander around, so he was stuck in the house, waiting for something to happen. _The feather is most likely underwater. I'd fall asleep as soon as I touched it, so I can't go after it myself. And I can't ask the others to look for it. That's not why they're here. All I'm doing is holding them up. _

A flash of movement near the doorway caught his eye, and he leaned forward, wondering if Sakura had returned. Instead, Anemone swept in, her seaweed-colored hair swaying behind her. The woman moved with shark-like grace, even though both her arms were wrapped around a pair of baskets.

"Hyuu! Did you get all that at the market, Anemone-san?"

The scaled woman glanced up, setting aside both baskets. The smaller container appeared to be full of fresh fruit, while the covered one smelled of fish. "Yes," she said in her melodious voice. "I was lucky—there was plenty of fresh food today. It'll take time fillet the fish, but once I do, I can roll it up for you to eat."

"Like sushi?" Fai asked. Syaoran could tell the wizard was trying to rein in his disgust. He could also tell, from way Anemone looked at him, that he hadn't quite managed it.

"Is that what they call fish where you come from?"

Fai shrugged. "Depends if it's cooked or not."

Anemone cocked her head to the side. "Cooked . . . Like a pastry?"

Fai deflated, and Kurogane spoke. "Sushi refers to the rice, not the fish. Raw fish is called sashimi."

"Oh."

Syaoran rose from the couch. "I'll help fillet the fish so we can cook some tomorrow." He glanced at Anemone. "If that's all right."

The woman shrugged, her ribbon-like fins slicing through the air, and pulled out a cutting board. "We don't cook our fish here, but if that's how your people prepare it . . ."

The relief pouring off Fai's body was palpable. Syaoran hurried over to the kitchen and pulled a fillet knife from the kitchen drawer.

"Ah, be careful, Syaoran-kun," Fai called from across the room. "If you start to feel dizzy, set the knife down."

"I will."

Syaoran remembered the basics of cooking. Traveling with his father had exposed him to hundreds of different cultures, and, consequently, their dining habits. Though his memories were vague, he remembered the feel of a knife gliding through fresh-caught fish. He soon fell into a rhythm, which, after a time, Anemone began to study. "I've never seen anyone fillet a fish like that."

"My father taught me. At least, I think he was the one who taught me . . ."

Anemone frowned, looking back at her own portions. In the time it had taken him to cut several flat fillets, she'd assembled three stacks of uniform pieces. "You mean you're not sure?"

He shook his head. "I lost my memories a while ago. I'm starting to get them back, but . . ." He trailed off, uneasy. He didn't want to offend the others by implying that their progress was too slow, yet there was a part of him that ached, as if he was missing something crucial along with his lost memories.

Anemone must've sensed his discomfort, because she changed the subject. "You're lucky to have friends that care so much for you."

_Friends. _His eyes flickered to Kurogane and Fai, as they bantered in the living room. _Are they my friends? They didn't go on this journey for my sake, so I probably didn't know them before, but they've already helped me through so much. And Sakura . . . _He tried to concentrate, as if whatever knowledge he had about her would just pop into his mind. _I was important enough for her to save, yet I don't have any memory of who she is. I _must _have met her before . . . _

A dull ache sprouted in his temples, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. His fingers went slack around the knife. He had just enough presence of mind to set the blade aside before his legs collapsed under him.


	25. Nightmares

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sakura could feel the magic humming across her skin, but she couldn't transfer the energy to the coin in her hand.

She'd been sitting on the edge of the fountain for three hours now, staring at the gold coin in the hopes that it would eventually respond, but after working so long without any results, she had to wonder if Fai's way of spell-casting was incompatible with her own. _Maybe I wasn't meant for this type of magic,_ she thought, lowering her hands to her lap and sighing. Even after years of academic and magic-related lessons, her ability to focus was waning.

_I can't just give up. It's more than my life on the line here._ She grit her teeth, a flare of magic rushing over her skin in response to her frustration. The coin in her palm didn't even twitch.

In an effort to refocus, she closed her eyes and took a moment to listen to the music of rushing water behind her. This world was everything Clow Country wasn't—ringed by the ocean, overflowing with plants both cultivated and wild. The whisper of the ocean was audible even in the center of the island. She'd been one of the few people allowed to visit the reservoir in Clow, so the sound of running water wasn't unfamiliar to her, but it was still foreign enough to sound musical, even soothing.

Sakura wasn't aware of her transition from awareness to dreams. When her mind conjured senseless images on the backs of her eyelids, she watched them as if observing a play. Colors and lines mingled together with other fragmented images, and a sense of impatience sprouted in her heart. As her conscious mind slipped further and further away, however, the dreams resolved into something clearer.

In her dream, she was standing ankle-deep in the reservoir, wearing her special gown for the purification ritual. Her whole body tingled in response to the water, but unlike the coin she'd been holding all night, the water responded, singing on a frequency only she could hear. Its song was mournful, but tender, like a mother's lullaby. For a time, Sakura lost herself to the melody, her task forgotten as the water shifted and rippled around her. Then, a new, brighter melody wove into the haunting lullaby of before. Her heart recognized the new song before she realized the cause.

"Syaoran," her dream-self said, glimpsing his hair in the water's mirror-like surface. Ripples spread across his face as he approached the edge of the water, distorting the image, but she smiled anyway. The water mirrored her expression.

When Syaoran didn't respond, she paused. Without really knowing why, she addressed the image in the water instead of turning to face him. "Is something wrong, Syaoran?"

All sound seeped out of the reservoir, as if the fountains in the walls had frozen. Syaoran's reflection moved closer, but somehow, she couldn't move, couldn't react to his proximity. _I have to warn him_, she thought. _No one can touch me during the purification ritual. _

She tried to open her mouth, but her lips remained fused together. Instead, her reflection moved, lips framing soundless words, then jumping back when Syaoran drew too close. Oblivious to her apparent panic, he advanced, his shoes getting soaked.

All movements except for those of the reflections ceased. Sakura watched, horrified, as a sword appeared in Syaoran's hand. Instead of retreating, however, her own reflection froze, eyes glassy with fear.

On the surface of the water, Syaoran's face became clear. His expression was cold, devoid of any emotion. _As if his heart has iced over_, she thought, watching as he took the last few steps toward her reflection. The girl in the water raised her arms over her head, as if protecting herself from a blow. Syaoran raised the sword in his hand.

One of his eyes had turned blue. She didn't know why that was important, but the observation sent spires of fear through her heart, and all she could do was watch as he brought the sword down. Her reflection's blood spread beneath the water's surface.

Sakura woke to a light pressure on her shoulder. The sound of rushing water filled her ears again, and she sat up, heart pounding. A pair of wintry blue eyes stared back at her, somehow just as distant as the frigid blue eye she'd seen on Syaoran's face in that last moment.

"Ah, you're awake."

"Fai-san?" She blinked, then sat up. The coin she'd been holding for the past few hours tumbled out of her hand, but she was too groggy to catch it before it hit the ground.

Fai smiled, bending over to pick it up. "I thought you'd be getting tired, but if I'd known you were this exhausted, I would've come by earlier."

Her cheeks warmed. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was falling asleep." She paused and considered whether or not she should tell Fai about her nightmare, but before she could decide, he rose fluidly from the edge of the fountain and stretched like a cat.

"It's late, anyway. We'd better head inside for the night, before the monsters come out."

She stood, bowed her head, and started for Anemone's vacation house.

"So, did you make any progress?" Fai asked, looking over his shoulder.

Embarrassed, she shook her head.

"Ah, well, I'm sure you'll get it eventually."

It was one of those meaningless platitudes people offered when there wasn't anything better to say, but Sakura was too tired to care. She wanted to get back, check on Syaoran, then go to sleep in the plush circular bed on the second floor.

It surprised her to see the lanterns were still burning. Had Fai forgotten to extinguish them on his way out, or had he thought he wouldn't be away long enough for it to matter? She was about to point out the dangers of such careless illumination when she stepped inside and realized that not everybody was asleep, as she'd assumed. Kurogane glanced up from the couch as they entered. His shoulders seemed to relax slightly when he saw her. "About time you came back. I've been babysitting for half an hour."

She blinked, then noticed Syaoran curled up on the other side of the couch, swaddled in blankets.

"Aw, Kuro-daddy is so nurturing when it comes to his children," Fai crooned.

"He's not my . . . _What did you just call me_?"

Sensing an oncoming confrontation, Sakura darted upstairs. Recently, it seemed like Kurogane's constant aggravation with Fai had softened into a more playful aggression, and while she didn't think he'd seriously injure any of them, she didn't want to get stuck in the crossfire.

Once upstairs, she changed out of her sweaty clothes and vowed to take a bath first thing tomorrow morning. Then, wincing at a loud crash downstairs, she threw herself onto the mattress and closed her eyes.

Unlike before, sleep didn't come easily to her. She tossed and turned, her vivid dream playing on the insides of her eyelids as she dwelled on her lack of progress. She'd managed a single, lucky bull's-eye in archery, and her magic skills were not only lacking, but absent. More than anything, she wanted to talk to Yukito. The High Priest had tutored her in magic for years, and she'd always excelled under his teachings.

Thinking of Yukito made her think of Clow. In her absence, there would be chaos. Her brother had handled most of the diplomatic issues, but the people of Clow would be shaken by the fact that their princess had disappeared into another dimension. _And Touya's probably furious, knowing I made Yukito send me away to save Syaoran. _

She rolled over, eyelids sliding open as she gave up on trying to sleep. The ocean-themed mural stretched out in front of her, colors dampened by the cloak of darkness, and she wondered what it must be like to live in the sea, as the people of the Sapphire Islands did. Was it the same for them as living in a desert had been for her?

Her mind spun in circles, too weary for more developed thought, but too restless to grant her the respite of sleep. Several thoughts kept recurring, revolving around the nightmare. Yukito had once said that some people could see the future in dreams, though he'd cautioned her that such visions were often too symbolic to make sense of prior to the event they foreshadowed. Still, she wondered if her nightmare meant anything. It seemed so disjointed—time being frozen, Syaoran's reflection trying to kill hers . . . and his eyes. One brown and one blue.

It didn't make any sense, and when she finally fell asleep, no new dreams illuminated the mystery. But the memory stuck with her.

* * *

><p>Sunlight slanted in from several windows, striking the stone walls and lighting them up like moonlight playing across the ocean's surface. Sakura sat up in the bed, rubbed her bleary eyes, and searched the house for a bathroom so she could clean herself off from yesterday's training.<p>

Halfway down the steps, she nearly collided with Syaoran. He jumped back, landing lightly on the bottom step, then smiled up at her. "Good morning."

A smile found its way to her lips without a thought. "Good morning, Syaoran. Did you sleep well?"

He hesitated, then looked down. "Fai-san didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Syaoran fidgeted nervously. "I sort of . . . passed out, before you got back."

_Oh, right,_ she thought, remembering how he'd been curled up on the couch when she'd walked in._ It's only been a couple days since he passed out in the water. Is it because I'm not finding his feathers fast enough? _A frown creased her lips, and she glanced down, worried.

"I'm sorry," Syaoran said. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, no. I always want you to tell me things, it's just . . ." She trailed off and shook her head. "It's nothing."

"But it seems like every time I say something, you stop smiling. I don't want to be a burden to you—"

"It's fine," she said, taking the last few steps downstairs and weaving her fingers through his. He looked at their joined hands, eyebrows shooting up into his hairline. She tightened her grip. "You're not a burden to me. And if I ever seem sad . . . it's only because I'm dwelling on things I can't change. Just having you here makes everything a lot easier."

His gaze hadn't strayed from their joined hands. Slowly, he moved his other hand up and folded it around hers. "Sakura-hime . . . Why are you . . ."

She leaned forward, listening intently. Abruptly, Syaoran uncurled his fingers and stepped back. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'm sorry. It's just . . . You're a princess."

Her lips pressed into a thin line; she'd heard this argument too many times in Clow, before Syaoran had lost his memories, and she certainly didn't want to hear it now. "And why is that a problem?"

His brown eyes flitted up to hers, then away. "You're a princess. I'm not even nobility. I'm honored that you're helping me, but . . ." A pinkish tinge bloomed across his cheeks. "Why?"

"Syaoran . . ." she murmured, distressed. But before she could say anything else, a loud crash echoed through the building, coming from downstairs. Sakura grabbed the banister, startled, but Syaoran ran toward the source of the noise without a second thought. He spared her a single glance when she called his name, but before she could even make sense of the chaos, a plume of smoke enveloped the staircase where she stood.


	26. Strangers

_Author's Notes:_

_I'd like to start today's chapter with an apology. I haven't updated this in months, which is completely unacceptable, and, looking back on some of the previous chapters, I have obviously not done as much editing as I should(I found _five _grammar errors in _one _chapter! Five! And numerous inconsistencies!), so I will probably be going through the previous chapters and cleaning those up over the next few weeks. So feel free to yell at me for my total lack of discipline. I deserve your wrath._

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty-Six<p>

Smoke rose up the staircase, coiling in her throat and robbing her of breath. Sakura pressed her arm against her mouth, eyelids squeezing shut. It didn't help. Her eyes still watered, and her lungs heaved as she dissolved into a fit of coughing. Instinct pushed her to get as low to the ground as possible, but even when she laid down on the steps, smoke swirled all around her.

_I have to move, _she thought. _Or I'll die of smoke inhalation. _Wheezing, she pushed herself down the steps, eyelids sliding open as she struggled to see through the smoke. "Syaoran?" she rasped. He'd rushed into the black cloud at the sound of the explosion, though why anybody would rush _toward_ danger eluded her.

Still, if something was on fire, she should try to get out of the building. As she reached the bottom step, the smoke thinned out. She crawled across the floor, scraping her elbows the stone. She crawled halfway into the living room before the source of the smoke became clear. Fai stood next to the oven, still wearing an apron and oven mitts. With one hand, he fanned the smoke away from the oven, channeling it away from the kitchen.

And he was smiling.

"Fai-san, are you all right?" Had he inhaled too much smoke? Was that why he looked so deliriously happy?

"Ah, Sakura-chan, good morning." He kept fanning the smoke with his hand. "I was making breakfast, but things got a little out of hand. Can you open the windows? We should get some fresh air in here."

_A little out of hand, _she thought, struggling to think of a response as she scurried over to one of the windows. A gust of fresh air, seasoned with saltwater, streamed in as she pushed the glass aside. "Shouldn't we get out of the house?" she asked, nearly losing the words in a coughing fit.

Syaoran emerged from the cloud of smoke before Fai could answer, a cloth pressed over his mouth. Abandoning her previous worries, Sakura rushed over. "Syaoran, you shouldn't go into the smoke like that! It's _dangerous_."

"I'm fine," he said, peeling the cloth away from his mouth. "It was just a little accident."

She looked back at Fai, her expression demanding an explanation. When he only continued to smile, she voiced that demand. "How did this happen?" _How could you let it? _she thought in distress.

"I'm not used to this oven. I left our breakfast in a little too long, that's all." He pulled a pan out of the oven. Several charred lumps clung to the metal, smoking independently of the rest of the oven. If she'd seen them out of context, she wouldn't have identified them as food.

"Why is the whole oven on fire?"

"Relax, Sakura-chan. It's just a little mishap."

"A mishap." Her voice trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, forcing the tremors to cease before she spoke again. "We can't use the oven anymore. It's too dangerous."

Fai's smile faltered. "It's all right now. No one's hurt."

_But someone could've been. _She shook her head and picked up her bow from where it leaned against the wall. "I'm going out to practice."

She heard Fai calling after her, but she walked out the door without even pausing. Damp, salty air caressed her skin, but the ocean breeze failed to dispel her anxiety. She picked up the pace, passing the target where she'd been practicing and continuing forward. Her feet pounded against the cobblestones, her speed picking up until she broke into a run. Wind rushed through her hair like warm fingertips running across her scalp. She breathed deep, her lungs demanding more of the humid air as she ran faster and faster.

Someone was following her.

She stopped, the certainty of that fact hitting her like a stack of bricks. She looked over her shoulder, heartbeat faltering as everything fell silent. The only sound that remained was the constant, unnoticeable _whoosh _of the waves, as distant as they could ever be on this island.

Someone was following her. She felt it, the same way she felt when a spirit was near or when someone was watching her from afar. Following her. Or watching. "Fai-san?" she called into the darkness. Her voice bounced off the cylindrical buildings, then faded into the silence, unanswered. Distress settled in her stomach. "Fai-san? Syaoran-kun? Kurogane-san? Mokona?"

No one answered. The waves continued their restless whispering.

She looked around, wondering if she'd been mistaken. Sunlight streamed between buildings in defined, golden rays. Dust motes stirred in the air. Except for the disturbing lack of people, this didn't look like the sort of place where someone would stalk her around the island. In fact, everything looked almost obscenely bright and comfortable.

"And who might you be?"

She shrieked, jumping half a foot in the air before spinning around. The tip of her bow struck the side of a building, the fine wood scraping against the stone. For a moment, she froze, unsure whether to focus on the speaker or her weapon. "Who . . ." The question died on her tongue, her eyes panning up to two complete strangers, each with the same graceful fins and iridescent scales as Anemone.

The one on the left cocked her head to the side. "Trident, I think you scared her."

The male stiffened, his scaly shoulders glinting in the sunlight like sapphire stretched over bone. Sakura stared, mesmerized. "Of course I scared her," he said, tilting his chin up and closing his mud-brown eyes. "I _ought _to frighten people."

"Who are you?" Sakura asked, drawing back. She thought about reaching for an arrow, then hesitated. If the man hadn't drawn attention to himself, she wouldn't have noticed him, which probably meant that he hadn't intended to sneak up on her. Besides, neither of them appeared hostile. _Better to figure out what's going on first, _she decided, taking a deep breath.

"We're from Anemone's pod," the female said, leaning forward. Her pale lips stretched into a smile.

"Coral, I don't think she knows what a pod is," whispered the man Coral had referred to as "Trident." He regarded her, blinking slowly, as a lizard might blink.

Sakura edged back half a step. "Anemone told you about us?"

"Yes. An unusual group of travelers," said the female. "We heard you had no fins and couldn't breathe in water. We wanted to meet you."

"Oh." _They must think we're freaks, _she thought, not nearly as offended by the idea as she would've expected to be.

"It's wonderful to meet you. I'm Coral, and this is Trident." The woman leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "He can be a bit thick-skulled at times, but he's harmless." She leaned back, resuming a normal volume. "You must be Sakura."

"I am. It's nice to meet you. Um . . . Was there anyone else with you?"

Confusion flickered through Coral's honey-colored eyes. "No. Why do you ask?"

_Because someone was watching me, _she thought, remembering her earlier anxiety. _And they weren't friendly. _"No reason."

"What's that?" Trident asked, pointing to her bow. "Some new kind of spear?"

"This is a bow," she said. When they stared at her, she tried to explain. "It's, um . . . It's a weapon. On land, you can use it to hunt things, or to fight."

"Those spears look awfully tiny to hunt anything big enough to eat," Trident remarked.

She considered explaining that they weren't meant to be used as spears, then decided it wasn't really relevant to the conversation. "I suppose they are. Is that all, then?"

"We'd love to meet your friends. Anemone wouldn't stop gushing about how unique you all are."

"Oh." Still holding her bow, Sakura folded her hands in front of her. "All right. I'll take you to them. They're at Anemone's house."

The pair smiled. Sakura started walking back to the house, glancing over her shoulder every few minutes as they chattered behind her. Mostly, their conversations centered around things she didn't understand and people she didn't know, but several times on the way back, she heard them talking about how excited they were to meet the mysterious group of travelers.

Sakura decided she would be a lot happier once they focused their attentions on someone besides her.

Fai was waiting outside when she arrived. She heard him humming before she saw him, but as she passed by the last buildings blocking her view, she saw him perched on the second story windowsill, watering the hanging plants from above. "You're back early," he said, dropping his tune and waving at her. His eyes opened, then widened as he caught sight of their guests. The smile fell from his face as he spoke. "Chi."

Sakura blinked. "What?"

Fai stared beyond her for a moment, his expression unchanging. His lips paled even as they stretched into a smile. "No, I suppose you're not her," he said, hopping down from his perch. "Welcome. I just finished making breakfast."

She grimaced, remembering his last attempt at cooking and wondering how he'd even managed that with Anemone's oven. Fai had prepared several meals since the beginning of their journey, though their time in each world had been brief, and none of them had exploded. _Maybe it _was _the oven, _she thought, feeling guilty for her outburst this morning. "I'm sure it's delicious, Fai-san," she said, bowing her head.

He just smiled at her and changed the subject. "I see you've made some friends in the short time you were gone. Would you care to introduce us?"

"R-right," she said, and explained who these people were and how she'd encountered them. She left out the sensation of watching eyes, attributing her anxiety to this morning's incident. It must've been the lack of people that had gotten to her. An uninhabited city was naturally creepy, after all. Clearly, she'd worked herself up over nothing.

Fai invited their guests inside, and Sakura dutifully went with them. They spent about five minutes introducing Syaoran, Kurogane, and Mokona to the curious pair, every meeting peppered with questions about their clothes and culture. They seemed baffled by the differences in their answers, and even more confused by the way Mokona referred to herself in third person and how she could speak so intelligently while being so inhuman.

"I'm sorry if we're bothering you," Coral said at one point. "These questions must seem so strange to you. It's just that we've never met anyone with such . . ."

"Attributes?" Trident suggested.

Coral nodded vigorously. "Exactly. And things have been so hectic underwater lately, with the serpent terrorizing our pods."

"Serpent?" Syaoran echoed, perking up on the edge of the couch. A few moments ago, his eyes had been drooping, his head bobbing up and down in what Sakura guessed were the precursors of another narcoleptic incident, but now his eyes shone with curiosity.

Coral blinked, as if she'd just assumed they would know about the problems occurring underwater. "Anemone didn't mention that?"

Syaoran shook his head. Sakura stepped forward. _It could be a feather, _she thought. _And if it's causing these people harm, we'll have to find it right away. _"Can you tell us more about it?"

"Well, sure." The woman looked at Trident, as if searching for assistance. When the man shrugged, she began, her voice softening. "It started about a month ago. The sea serpents have always skirted around the edges of our pods, picking off the frail when they got the chance. They are one of the few creatures that hunt us as we hunt them, you see. Up until a month ago, we'd never had more than two or three fatalities in a year. The sea serpents were a problem then, but recently, one particular monster has become a menace." Her expression darkened.

"We've lost five this month, two of them strong, hardy spear-fishers," Trident said solemnly. "Several local pods have sent hunting parties to the monster's lair, but whenever they come close, the monster attacks. We've yet to catch it while it is sleepy or lethargic, and poisons don't seem to affect it as they would normal serpents."

Sakura glanced at Fai and saw that his expression had turned solemn as well. He nodded once in her direction.

"What does this serpent look like?" she asked.

"It's a long, black snake with eyes like blood," Coral said, gesturing sharply to emphasize her description. "It's grown twice as long as any serpent we've encountered before, and it's got an appetite to match. We tried distracting it by dropping fresh tuna near its lair, but that only satiates its hunger for a day or two, and then it's circling our territory again. We're all on high alert. If we weren't so ill-suited to long-term life on land, I think we'd all be cramming ourselves onto the islands."

"So you're saying it's not natural for a sea serpent to grow that size," Fai said. Coral nodded, her pale blonde hair bouncing with the movement.

Sakura glanced at Fai, a silent conversation passing between them. Then she turned to her guests. "I know why this monster has been terrorizing your people."

"Really?" Trident said, voice dripping with skepticism. "Do tell."

She turned to face him. "That serpent has one of Syaoran's feathers."


	27. Manipulations

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Coral stared at her, blinking slowly, like a lizard. "What are feathers?"

Sakura frowned, opened her mouth to explain, then closed it again as she wondered how she was supposed to describe such a common object. "It's . . . well, it's sort of like . . ."

"Like a fish scale," Syaoran said suddenly. Sakura looked over, surprised by the animation in his voice. "But shaped like an elongated diamond, and much larger than most scales." He held out his hands, giving an approximation of the length. "The texture is softer, almost like hair, but doesn't move as freely."

Coral and Trident exchanged glances. After a moment, Coral said, "We've never seen anything like that under the surface. Are you sure that's what's causing all the chaos?"

Sakura nodded. It _had _to be a feather—what else could cause a serpent to grow so large and act so viciously? "We're sure. And if it's endangering the people here, we'd like to retrieve it as soon as possible."

"That's . . . That's a good idea," Coral said, honey-colored eyes flickering to Trident.

Fai shifted forward, pulling his legs in so his knees pressed against his chest. "Can you tell us where you last saw this serpent?"

Coral nodded, then looked out the east-facing window. "The creature built its lair just beyond the Fish-bone ridge. If you swim straight in that direction, you'll come to a series of caverns under the surface. It lives there."

Sakura nodded and turned to Fai. "We should go as soon as possible."

He frowned. "What about your swimming lessons?"

_Oh. Right. _She bowed her head, then turned back to their guests. "Will you be able to keep everyone away from the area for a few more days?"

"I suppose we can manage it," Coral said. "Everyone is afraid of the serpent already, so most of us avoid its lair."

"Good. We'll deal with it as soon as we can."

Coral stood and extended one webbed hand. "Thank you so much. We've been living in fear for so long now. It'll be a relief to get our hunting grounds back."

Trident also rose. "Indeed. Until then, we will make sure no one goes near the serpent."

They exchanged farewells. The two sea-dwellers left as quickly as they'd arrived, striding gracefully into the night, as if they were just as comfortable walking on land as they were in the water. Sakura turned back to Fai. "I need you to teach me how to swim."

* * *

><p>Fei Wang Reed swiveled in his chair as a new image appeared among the others. His monocle glinted in the dim light. "I see you were successful," he said to the scale-covered creatures looking up at him. Their kind had many names, depending on the world: mermaids, sirens, children of the sea. To him, they were just one more variation on intelligent life, one more set of pawns in his inter-dimensional chess game.<p>

The female regarded him with round, honey-colored eyes. "We sent them to retrieve the scale, just as you asked." She bowed her head, the movement stirring up small currents in the water. Her hair rippled like silver waves. "So . . . the debt is paid? We're free?"

Fei Wang smirked and held up one hand. In the image, a circle of light appeared on each of the mermaid's foreheads, the intricate lines glowing bright for an instant before shattering. "You are free," he said. "The curse is gone."

"We are grateful," the male said, bowing his head. "And honored that you would choose us to uphold your will."

"Yes, of course." _They are so quick to make gods out of powerful beings. _He made a dismissive gesture. "You have been very useful to me." The image remained long enough for him to watch the mermaids bow their heads in gratitude. Then, he let it fade, allowing other images to take its place. People were so easily manipulated. The pair hadn't even known he'd been the one to curse them. Hadn't known that the curse was hardly strong enough to inconvenience them. _Why bother with a more powerful spell when the very idea of a curse forces those afflicted with it to beg for a cure?_

His lazy smile widened. Manipulation. Control. Power. He had the ability to make his wish come true. And now that the desert princess was back to seeking out feathers, his plan could move forward again. The sooner his pawns moved on from the world they were in, the sooner his primary goal would be fulfilled. _A vessel with memories from every corner of the universe, _he thought, turning his attention to Clow Reed's descendant. The boy listened as his companions discussed their next step, occasionally interjecting his own advice into the conversation. _Still completely ignorant of his role, _Reed thought. _Good._

He swiveled again, looking down at Xing Huo. "Go fetch me a drink," he said. "I want to celebrate."

The girl nodded, her expression never changing from its blank mask. "Yes, Master Reed."

* * *

><p>"Keep kicking," Fai called from the shore. In the water, Sakura kicked furiously, struggling to keep her face above the surface as her toes brushed the stone steps below. After her last disastrous lesson with Syaoran, she'd decided to let Fai teach her the basics of swimming. She'd expected hands-on lessons and specific feedback, as she'd received during her archery lessons. Instead, she'd spent the past two hours struggling to stay afloat as the magician sat on the edge of the steps, cheering her on.<p>

_Maybe I should've let Syaoran teach me, after all, _she thought, heart aching a bit. Between archery lessons, magic lessons, and swimming lessons, she'd hardly seen Syaoran. _Once we've retrieved this feather, I should spend the day with him, _she thought. Surely such an indulgence wouldn't threaten their progress.

Then again, unlike court politics, the dangers they faced here were unfamiliar to her. A misstep could lead to death. Even Coral's confusion about Syaoran's feathers could've gone sour and resulted in a culture clash. Clow's peaceful political climate hadn't kept her father from teaching her about leadership. Poor communication always led to disaster. _And if that was in a familiar world, the risks of that happening here are even greater, _she thought, struggling toward the shore. As her toes touched the steps, she pushed herself toward the edge and crawled out of the water. "I need a break," she said, rivulets of water dripping down her hair.

"You've been at this a while," Fai said. "Swimming takes a lot of energy."

She nodded, staring out at the water. The sun reflected off the surface, making it shimmer. "I'd never been to an ocean before we landed here. I always heard the sea was beautiful, but I didn't think it would look this amazing." _As if the sun itself had shattered against the surface. _

"You should try looking up from below. It's even prettier."

Sakura glanced at the magician. "Were there oceans like this in your world?"

A sad smile crossed his face. "In my world, certainly. I studied them all—the king wanted me up to date on kingdom politics, as I was one of the most influential wizards in Ceres. But I can't say I'd _want _to swim in an ocean near my country. Where I come from, it snowed even in summer."

She blinked. "I can't even imagine that."

"You grew up in a desert, right, Sakura-chan?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever leave the country you grew up in?"

She thought about that. "I once visited a country to the south while my brother was negotiating with their king, but the climate was the same."

Fai nodded. "I preferred Ceres to any of the other countries I visited. There is comfort in the familiar."

She perked up a little. "So, are there many countries in your world? Are they diverse, or are they all cold, or . . ."

He chuckled and rested a hand atop her head, ruffling her hair. "As diverse as the countries of any world, I suppose. I used my transportation magic to take me to different countries so I could learn about their cultures. My king wanted me to experience many different places. And I . . ." He trailed off, his smile fading. "Well, what child doesn't want to travel to faraway lands on the king's behalf?"

Sakura frowned. Something about the words unsettled her, though she couldn't pinpoint what. _Maybe I'm imagining it, _she said, willing the little ripple of disquiet away. "Was your king a good man?"

Fai hesitated an instant too long. "Yes. Under his care, I was treated with great kindness and respect."

"I see." She stared out at the water, feeling strangely hollow. After a moment, she stood. "I should probably keep practicing."

"Good idea." Fai refocused, staring out at the waves as she waded into the water. Anemone had brought her some clothes more suited to water, leaving them at the foot of her bed. _Everyone in this world is so kind, _she thought. _Yet __it still has its dangers. And if Syaoran's feather is really at the root of that danger, I have to do something before it gets worse. _

With that thought in mind, she waded deeper into the water.


	28. Arguments

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The currents spun around her in gentle circles, sliding over her swimsuit. Sakura peered through the water, her vision made clear by the goggles she'd borrowed from Syaoran. While Syaoran had once used them to keep sand from his eyes during archeological digs, Sakura now used them to see underwater.

She floated there for several seconds, eyes scanning the coral reef below. Brilliant orange fish swam between jutting bits of coral, darting in and out of crevices. Colorful, branching plants clung to every surface, their appendages billowing in the currents stirred up by passing sea creatures. Yellow, disk-shaped fish sliced through the water, changing direction instantly, then swimming sinuously for several feet before turning once more.

Her lungs started to burn. Reluctantly, she kicked her legs, shooting up to the surface. Four days of intense swimming lessons had left her fatigued, but no one could have denied her progress. Her body sheared through the water as if she'd been swimming all her life. As her head broke the surface, she drew in a deep breath and pushed her hair away from her face.

"Twenty-four seconds," Fai announced, treading water a dozen feet away.

Sakura beamed. "Really?"

"Yep." The magician swam over, as graceful as the fish darting around the reef. "That's a nine-second gain from yesterday. You're getting more comfortable with the water."

"Yes," she said brightly. "I used to be afraid of drowning whenever I couldn't touch the bottom, but that seems silly now."

"Still, I think that's plenty of exercise for the day. Anemone said we shouldn't stay out past dark, and the sun's already setting."

"Oh." Disappointed, she looked to the horizon. Sunlight slanted across the ocean waters, dying them a deep crimson to complement the pink streaks in the sky. "I guess you're right." She started swimming toward the island, ducking her head under the water so she could look at the coral reefs as she swam. They hadn't gone far—less than half a mile—but even with practice, it had taken a long time to travel even that distance. Fai had taken her out for a lesson early this morning as well, breaking her practice into two sessions with her other lessons sandwiched in between. Over the past four days, her archery had improved, though she still couldn't hit the bull's-eye. As for her magic lessons, she had yet to levitate the coin Fai had given her a week ago.

Privately, she wondered if she even had the right type of magic to manipulate physical objects. Yukito had mostly taught her about the flow of energy and the expression of pure magic. She could erect barriers, as she had in Koryo, but she had little idea how to transfer that energy into a physical object. _Maybe my type of magic just isn't compatible with Fai-san's, _she thought, coming up for air, then plunging under the surface again. Fai swam several meters ahead of her, much more practiced with the mechanics of underwater travel. Whenever he got too far ahead, he stopped, treading water until she caught up.

By the time they reached the island, the sky had darkened to a deep blue. She pulled herself onto the stone steps, wringing water from her hair as her legs adapted to solid ground again. "Do you think we could start looking for that sea-monster Coral mentioned?" she asked. "I'm getting a lot better at swimming—I think I could manage the trip."

Fai considered that a moment, tilting his head up. He seemed to be looking at the first stars as they came to life in the sky. "Maybe tomorrow. You don't want to put yourself in a dangerous situation when you're already tired."

She nodded. "Tomorrow then. You'll wake me up early, right?" Her brother had always stressed the importance of waking up early. Often, there were too many things to occupy a princess's attention during the day, such as galas, treaty-signings, and other royal business. Most of her lessons on politics and magic had taken place either at dawn or late in the evening. And though she enjoyed sleeping in, she couldn't afford that luxury with a sea serpent rampaging.

Fai just smiled, heading for Anemone's house. They walked in near-silence, the only sound of their passage being the faint dripping from their clothes and the slap of wet feet over stone. Belatedly, she realized she'd forgotten her sandals at Anemone's house.

Voices wove through the air as they approached the building. Sakura cocked her head to the side, listening.

"Left. Now right. Don't look down."

_That's odd, _she thought, recognizing Kurogane's voice. _Who's he talking to? _Curiosity nudged her forward so that by the time Anemone's house appeared between the other buildings, she'd fallen into a steady jog.

Syaoran stood across from Kurogane in front of the house. Both of them were holding straight wooden sticks. Briefly, Sakura wondered where they'd found them—she hadn't seen any trees since they'd fallen into this world. But her confusion evaporated as the ninja raised his makeshift staff and brought it around in a sweeping arc. "Left," he called. Syaoran jumped to the side, bringing his own stick up to block the attack.

The sound of splintering wood shattered the air. Sakura darted forward. "What are you _doing_?" she demanded. She'd wanted her voice to sound sharp. Instead, her words had come out in a squeak.

Kurogane glanced over, tilting his stick back so it rested on his shoulder. "Sparring."

She stared at him. "What?"

"Ah, it's all right," Syaoran said quickly, leaning his staff against the wall. "I asked Kurogane-san if he would teach me some things, since I don't remember much yet."

"But you shouldn't be _fighting_! You could get hurt!"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Kid's gotta learn how to defend himself."

Sakura frowned, then walked over and took Syaoran's stick from where he'd leaned it against the wall. "You haven't recovered enough feathers yet. You can't do something this dangerous."

His shoulders curled inward, his face pinching together in distress. "I . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Hey," Kurogane said. His tone made her freeze. "We know you don't want him hurt, but you can't coddle him. He's not a child."

Her shoulders stiffened; she turned to face the ninja. "It's _my_ job to protect him."

"And who's going to protect _you_?"

She flinched, unable to keep herself from looking down. "I'll protect myself."

Kurogane crossed his arms. "No matter how much you practice, this journey is going to challenge you. If you want to survive, you ought to surround yourself with as many capable fighters as you can."

Her hands curled into fists, but even as anger pulsed through her body, she felt impotent, as if she were a kitten facing a lion. "I'm not weak. And I won't be _coddled _either," she added, satisfaction surging through her veins as she threw his own term back at him. His eyebrows slanted downward.

"All right, that's enough," Fai said, stepping between them. "You both have good points, but let's all take time to think so we can discuss this civilly."

Kurogane shot a glare at the wizard, then snorted. "Do what you want. If you don't want my help, I won't offer it." He turned, still brandishing his makeshift staff, and walked toward the marketplace, never looking back.

Syaoran glanced in her direction. "Sakura-hime . . ."

"Please, just call me Sakura," she said, frustrated. "I told you to drop the title."

He shuffled his feet, looking down. "Sakura . . . You didn't have to do that. It wasn't a big deal."

She exhaled slowly, trying to regain control of her emotions. Already, guilt had crept in to replace her anger. "I don't want you to get hurt. That's all." She walked through the door. "I'm going out to look for your feather tomorrow morning. Maybe afterward, we could consider letting you do more rigorous activity."

"Sakura-chan," Fai said. "You shouldn't . . ." He trailed off as she left them behind.

By the time she reached the stairs, she already felt like crying.

* * *

><p>She slept poorly that night. Guilt gnawed at her stomach, and though her swimming lessons had left her exhausted, the soreness in her arms and legs woke her often after she fell asleep. Though she felt miserable when the morning sun peered through her window, she forced herself to dress and head downstairs.<p>

Fai and Kurogane were already up, and breakfast—fish, once again—sizzled in a pan. She hovered at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, last night's guilt sharpening as she saw the others. Kurogane had taken a seat on the couch, shaving layers from the stick he'd been using to spar last night. He'd whittled the staff down so no bark remained, and he'd fashioned the bottom part of the staff into a handle. Several leather wrappings sat beside him on the couch, not yet used.

Sakura took a deep breath to steady herself, then approached. "Good morning."

The ninja didn't look up. "Morning."

She shifted her weight between her feet, biting her lip. "May I sit down?"

He shrugged. She took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, sidestepping the pile of wood shavings on the floor. Several seconds passed without a word. Eventually, her guilt overpowered her embarrassment. "I'm sorry I snapped at you last night. That was . . . ill-befitting of me."

The knife in his hand paused for just a moment. "Yeah. We both said some things we shouldn't have said."

_That's as close to an apology as you're ever going to get from him, _she thought, swallowing. _Deal with it._ "Do you still intend to teach Syaoran how to fight?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether he asks me about it." For the first time, his wine-red eyes flickered to her face. "I won't hold him back. There's only one princess I answer to, and it's not you. If the kid still wants to learn, I'm going to teach him."

She flinched. "I . . . see." When the ninja didn't say anything more after several seconds, she sighed. "Is there anything that would change your mind?"

"No."

Sakura stood, fighting the wave of disappointment lapping up around her toes. Of course she couldn't control the ninja—being from a foreign world, she had no legal or political power over him. But part of her wished she did, so she could make him reconsider. Couldn't he see the potential for danger? If he gave Syaoran the skills to fight, then Syaoran would feel compelled to face the dangers with them. _He could hurt himself, _she thought. _And I wouldn't be able to help him. _

"Hey," Kurogane said. She looked back and saw that the annoyance had vanished from his face. "I won't deny that you're becoming more capable every day, but it never hurts to have one more person backing you up."

She looked down, folding her hands in front of her dress. "Thank you," she said quietly. _But it was my choice to save Syaoran. I won't lose him now. _


	29. Serpents

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kurogane watched the girl walk out with a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows in the other.

He'd spent the morning carving the piece of driftwood into a staff, cursing whenever he chipped away too much or let the carving knife slip. He figured that even if the boy didn't want to risk the princess's disapproval by training, there was no point in leaving himself without a weapon. Who knew how long it would be before they landed in a world that had swords he could buy?

Still, the echoes of the princess's outburst last night lingered in his mind. If he'd been unsure of his course, her worries might have swayed him. Instead, he saw her outbursts for what they were: signs that she was nearing her limit. Stress made people irrational. Once she took a step back, her head would clear. _If she can even take that step, _he thought. Fourteen-year-old girls weren't rational creatures._  
><em>

"I'm taking Sakura-chan out to look for the feather later today," Fai announced, jamming a knife into some sort of shellfish. Eyebrows drawn together, he looked almost irritated, as if the creature had done him some injustice. "Did you want to come?"

"It's not my job to look for the damn things," he said, filing down the ends of his makeshift staff. He'd trained with a variety of weapons after Tomoyo had invited him to Shirasagi Castle, and though he'd have preferred a bladed weapon, he knew how to use a staff.

"So, are you planning on sparring with Syaoran-kun while we're out?"

He frowned, glancing up. "Yeah, if he's up to it." _Might not be, _he decided. _Wouldn't want to disobey his princess, even if he can't remember her._

"He might not ask about it," Fai said, echoing his thoughts. "He feels bad about upsetting Sakura-chan."

"He'll have to get over it. They're _his _feathers—he's responsible for trying to get them back, too."

The magician nodded, finally popping open the shell. He peered inside, then grimaced, shutting it again. "I think he'd be less uncertain of himself if you brought it up first. The training, that is."

Kurogane paused, considering that. He glanced toward the doorway. Arrows whistled through the air outside. Judging by the occasional _thwack, _the princess missed the target almost as often as she hit it. "Shouldn't you be watching to make sure she doesn't hurt herself with that?" he asked.

"I taught her how to use the bow safely." The mage winced at a particularly loud _thwack_. "She'll be fine. Although . . . Hmm . . ."

Kurogane's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What?"

"I suppose it wouldn't make much difference if Sakura-chan went out to face the sea serpent _now_, if you wanted to spar with Syaoran-kun."

"Fine by me. I'll go wake him up." He stood, resting his staff over his shoulder and headed upstairs. With three levels, the cylindrical building had enough space for each of them to have their own room. He hadn't really visited the other bedrooms, except for his cursory inspection their first day here, but he knew where everyone slept. When he reached the top floor, he turned left, nudging aside a curtain made of tiny seashells as he stepped through the doorway.

The boy stood next to the window, leaning on the windowsill as he peered out toward the ocean. He glanced over his shoulder as Kurogane entered, then back to the window. "She's going to fight that serpent today, isn't she?"

"Yeah." Kurogane approached, noting the subdued quality of the kid's voice. After a moment, he rested his hand on his shoulder. "She'll be fine. She knows what's at stake."

"I don't understand why she'd go to such trouble for me." The kid's fingers curled, making a loose fist on the windowsill. "She's a princess. If anything, _I_ should be serving _her_."

Kurogane shrugged. "She chose to go on this journey. Whatever happens now is on her."

The boy frowned, looking back at him. "I want to help, but I don't think she'll let me."

"She just wants to keep you out of danger. Can't see why—you're capable enough, even with your mind all scrambled up." He leaned the staff against the wall, hoping the movement would draw the boy's attention. His eyes flickered to the crude weapon, then darted away.

"She doesn't want me to fight."

"Kid, if you let her run your life like that, she's never going to think you're strong enough to handle things on your own. Obedience makes for a good student, but _initiative _makes for a good warrior."

Syaoran's eyes flickered to the staff again. "Do you . . . Do you think we could try sparring again? I mean, I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, so if you don't want to, that's fine, but—"

"Meet me outside in ten minutes. And take this." He handed him the staff he'd been carving all morning, then took the still-unrefined piece of driftwood the kid had left by the door. "She'll be out for a couple hours. Might as well get some practice in."

The boy looked stricken. "I . . . Thank you."

_Yeah, let's see if you're thanking me in three hours, _he thought, running his fingertips over the solid chunk of driftwood.

* * *

><p>"Coral said we'd find the serpent's lair just past this ridge," Fai said, water dripping from his hair. "I think I can see the caverns she mentioned."<p>

Sakura swam forward, trying to keep up. As soon as she reached him, he ducked under the surface and darted in the direction they'd been heading for the past fifteen minutes. Unlike her previous expeditions into the water, she had a destination. A purpose. So rather than pausing every few minutes to practice holding their breath or treading water, they kept a steady pace as they swam toward the serpent's lair.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged under the water, peering through her tinted goggles at the ocean floor. A dying reef spread out beneath her, a stretch of gray and white, distinct from the colorful paradise she'd visited yesterday. Calcified coral jutted up from the rocky shelves like bones, their tips pointed like spikes. Here and there, fish peeked out of the bony projections, then darted back in, fleeing from the small, snakelike creatures that patrolled the dying reef. _Those must be what normal __serpents look like, _she thought, coming up for air, then diving again. The water shimmered above her head, sunlight filtering through in shifting patches as the waves stirred above her. She focused on that, rather than watching the shadows shifting below.

They swam perhaps another ten minutes before Fai suggested they rest. "We must be getting close," he said, not sounding winded at all as Sakura paddled over to him.

"You swim so fast," she said. "It's hard to keep up."

Fai managed to shrug while treading water. "Sorry. Luval Castle had a wonderful pool. I used to visit it all the time, after I first arrived there." His expression darkened for a moment. Then he flashed a smile, the shadow vanishing from his face. He handed her a metal spear the length of her arm. "Here. Anemone stopped by this morning and dropped this off. She said Coral had asked her to give it to us so we could fight the serpent."

Sakura took the fishing spear, frowning. "It's . . . a little small. I mean, if we're supposed to be fighting this giant sea serpent, shouldn't we have a better weapon?"

"Maybe." Fai turned his head, staring out over the waves. "Nothing to be done about it now. We'll just have to try our best and hope everything works out."

"Right." She paused. "Shall we go, then?"

"As you wish." Fai took a deep breath, then started swimming again. Sakura followed, heading downward now, instead of forward. Dozens of shadowed caverns clung to the ocean floor, with hundreds of serpents, all black, darting between burrows so that the ocean floor itself looked like a mass of moving tentacles. Faintly nauseated by the sight, Sakura clutched her fishing spear tighter.

_There, _she thought, as a massive serpent slithered out of one of the caverns. It roved across the ocean floor, sliding sluggishly between the sea-mounts. The other serpents paid it little heed.

Fai tapped her shoulder and pointed toward the surface. Nodding, Sakura swam upward, toward the refracted light. When her head broke the surface, she sucked in a deep breath. "That has to be it," she said. "That thing has one of Syaoran's feathers."

Fai nodded. "We're going to have trouble fighting it if it stays down that deep. We'll have to surface every twenty seconds or so."

"That's not enough time to swim down there, let alone try to attack." _But there has to be some alternative. Syaoran would think of a way. _"Let me think."

She dunked her head under, so she could examine the monster through her goggles. The serpent settled between several boulders, curling up like a sunbathing snake. Even at this distance, she could see the dips between its scales, the solid black pattern of its back. _The feather must be attached to its underbelly somehow, _she thought. _Maybe caught between its scales. But if that's the case, it's going to be even tougher to get it. And it's already grown so big . . . What if taking the feather doesn't make it go back to normal? The people of this world will still be in danger. _

_We have to kill it. _The thought sickened her. Until this journey had started, she'd never killed an animal. Yet, in the first world they'd visited, she'd had to kill the tiger-wolf creatures to stay alive. Now it looked like she'd have to kill this serpent as well.

She lifted her face from the water and took a breath. _So how can I do that? There's no way this spear will pierce through its skin. Maybe through the eye? But what if that doesn't stop it? And how would I get close enough? I can't hold my breath long enough to swim down there. I don't have the tools to use this spear like an arrow, and my bow wouldn't work underwater. _

Sighing, she ducked down and peered into the depths. As she watched, two smaller serpents crossed paths and started circling each other. Curious, she swam downward. They kept circling, their rudder-like tails jerking whenever they changed direction. Abruptly, one of them darted toward the other, opening its triangular mouth to reveal a set of jagged teeth. The other tried to swim away, but those teeth closed around its body, and a cloud of red spread through the water.

Within seconds, dozens of other serpents darted for their dying brother, ripping into him until nothing remained. Sakura watched, horrified, as the serpents frenzied, devouring one of their own. When the blood dispersed and there was nothing left, the frenzy abated.

Sakura lifted her head from the water and turned to Fai. He was staring at the water below, looking disturbed, and she could see the struggle for control raging in his eyes. After a moment, he glanced in her direction.

Very quietly, she said, "I have an idea."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes:<em>

_Speaking of ideas, I've got a few ideas for the next world the Tsubasa gang will be heading for. I plan to write about all of them at some point during this fic, but I'm curious as to which you'd like me to write about next, so I've posted a poll on my profile. Of course, alternative ideas are welcome, and will be added to the list at your request. Naturally, there are loose ends I need to tie up before the Tsubasa gang leaves this world, but the poll will only be open until I post the next chapter(whenever that ends up being), so respond soon. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and thanks, as always, for reading._


	30. Clouds of Blood

_Author's Notes:_

_I'd just like to thank everyone who participated in the poll I mentioned in the last chapter. It helped me sort out where the Tsubasa gang was going next and, consequently, what important plot milestones were going to occur when they get there. It might not go in precisely the order requested in the poll, but it does give me a much direction, so special thanks to everyone who voted, and I hope you all enjoy the upcoming chapters._

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirty<p>

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Fai said, lifting the basket of tuna by its chain.

Sakura glanced down at her own basket, wrinkling her nose. "It's better than my first plan," she said, shrugging.

Fai regarded her for a long moment, waiting for an explanation. She said nothing—even she could admit that her first plan probably wouldn't have ended well. _I probably would've been eaten, _she thought, remembering how the serpents had torn into each other as soon as the blood had seeped into the water. She ran her fingers across the fishing spear Anemone had given her. It wouldn't help much with the big serpent, but if any of the normal ones came too close, she'd be able to drive it away. "It'll be all right," she said as they waded into the water. "Anemone said tuna will work almost as good as fresh blood—the serpents will be distracted, and their movement will get the attention of the big one."

"Right, but . . . It seems a little reckless to me. We're going to be swimming with a bunch of bloodthirsty serpents, carrying a basket full of their favorite food, trying to lure them to attack us."

"Not _us_. The tuna." At least, she hoped they'd go after the tuna. Because her backup plan was to get close to the big serpent and try to distract it with her blood.

Fai sighed, pulling his waterproofed basket of chum into deeper water. "I hope you're right."

They swam until they reached Fish-bone Ridge. The stark white coral jutted up from the bottom of the ocean like teeth. Sakura peered down at the calcified branches. This was where they'd first started seeing serpents before. Sure enough, the long, black creatures slithered among the dead coral, occasionally snapping at each other. Clouds of blood rose wherever the serpents fought, drawing others near. _They just keep killing each other, _she thought. _How are they not extinct?_

Beside her, Fai pointed toward the surface. Sakura swam upward, dragging her own waterproofed basket along with her. "Yes?" she asked after she took a breath.

"These baskets won't last long once we release the lids," Fai said. "We're going to have to move quickly."

She nodded. "I know."

"Sakura-chan . . ."

She looked back, surprised to hear the grimness in his voice. His constant cheer had waned a bit since they'd met in Yuuko's shop, and though he still smiled often, she'd sensed something _different_ about him lately. Something she couldn't quite identify. _Worry, maybe?_

"Yes?" she asked when he didn't say anything more.

He hesitated, then looked out across the water. "Don't try to do something you can't accomplish," he finally said. "You won't be able to help anyone if you die."

Her eyes widened, and, in her shock, she said the first words that jumped to her mind. "You sound like Kurogane-san."

"We both just want what's best for you. If it doesn't look like you can get the feather, it's better to retreat and come back again later."

"I can't just go back without it," she protested. "If Syaoran-kun doesn't get his feathers back, he'll just keep getting weaker. He can barely stay awake throughout the day as it is."

Fai met her gaze, his eyes unreadable. "All right. Let's go, then." He ducked under the surface, slicing through the water despite the extra weight of the basket. Sakura trailed after him, kicking fiercely to keep up. As they swam, the reef became more dense, the whitened coral sticking up everywhere. _This place was alive once, _she thought, feeling the same twinge of grief she'd felt when watching the smaller serpents rip into each other. _Now it looks like a bone yard._

In front of her, Fai slowed, pointing downward. She followed his line of sight and saw the massive black serpent coiled up on the ocean floor. _There, _she thought, swimming downward. _That's our target. _She looked back, signaling Fai to remove the lid on his basket. As soon as his hand touched the top, she started swimming down, pulling her own basket along by the chain. This one she wouldn't open until she got closer to her target.

As the scent of tuna spread through the water, the smaller serpents shot up toward the source, ignoring her. _Good, _she thought, picking up the pace. The largest serpent—the one with the feather—shifted lazily in its bed of coral, as if unsure whether to bother going after the tuna. As she drew closer, she reached for the lid of her own basket and twisted, hoping the easier catch would draw the monster's attention. As she twisted the lid, several other serpents circled around her. _Not good. _

She kicked at them, trying to drive them away, but whenever her foot connected with one, another would graze some other part of her body. She twisted, panic pulsing through her chest. Another brushed up against her ankle. Frantic now, she kicked it away. _The fishing spear, _she thought, sliding the weapon out of the loop on her swimsuit. She thrust it toward one of the serpents, missing by inches but managing to drive it away. Another streaked by in her peripheral vision, attacking a clump of crushed tuna.

Below, the massive serpent lurched, raising its oblong head. Sakura spun in the water to face it. Its eyes zeroed in on her face, a deep, unsettling red. Those eyes grew bigger and bigger until its head took up her entire field of vision. _I'm going to get eaten, _she realized, releasing the chain attached to her basket. The serpent's mouth gaped, its pale pink flesh a stark contrast to its obsidian scales.

The creature had no teeth.

_How does it eat? _she wondered, staring down the creature's gullet even as she tried to swim away. The serpent's mouth clamped shut, closing around the basket. The tightly-woven material broke apart, releasing a cloud of crushed tuna and splinters. Sakura drew back, stunned. _Oh. It doesn't need teeth. It can just crush its food. _

The serpent's mouth opened again, its tongue pushing away the broken bits of the basket. _This is my chance, _she thought, swimming downward. The feather had to be stuck between the serpent's scales. She just had to find it.

_I need air, _she thought, scanning the beast's smooth underbelly. _But if I go to the surface now, I might not have another opportunity. _Her lungs seized up, demanding oxygen. She frantically examined the monster's body, trying to detect the feather. Yet she saw nothing that suggested the presence of a foreign object. _It should be obvious. The feather is much lighter in color than the serpent. So why can't I see it?_

Dark smudges swam in front of her eyes, her vision coming in and out of focus. She kicked her legs, suddenly desperate to get to the surface. Her whole body felt like gelatin. _That's odd, _she thought, then realized she'd stopped kicking. She tried to make her legs move, but they felt disconnected somehow. Her vision blurred until all that remained was a swirl of blue and black and red. _Red like blood, _she thought. _The smaller serpents must be fighting again. I should do something about that. _

_I should get back to the surface. _She tilted her head back, seeing the sunlight refracting off the top of the ocean. _It's so pretty. Like the sun broke apart into hundreds of different pieces on top of the water._

Some part of her mind knew that didn't make sense. The rest seemed to float along on some other frequency. She looked down again, and saw a piece of sunlight in the middle of the largest serpent's mouth. _That's interesting, _she thought fuzzily. _Why would the sun be all the way down there? _

Something curled around her arms, pulling her upward. Her body went limp, no longer responding to her will, and she floated, eyes still focused on that spot of brightness. It was important, she knew, though she couldn't comprehend why.

Her head broke the surface. All at once, her body came alive again, the pain in her chest becoming real. She flailed, gasping for air. Her hands, numb just a moment ago, tingled as she waved them in the air.

"Sakura-chan!" someone called, their voice muffled by the water in her ears. She looked up, seeing only the sun. "Sakura-chan, _breathe_!"

_I _am_ breathing, _she thought, dragging another lungful of air through her lips.

"Oh, thank Cirrus," the voice muttered. This time, she recognized it as Fai's.

She blinked. "Who's Cirrus?"

He shook his head. "Ceresian goddess of clouds. Doesn't matter. You almost drowned."

She said nothing, absorbing that. "Oh. So that's why everything started looking strange," she muttered. _Like that light in the serpent's mouth, _she thought, righting herself. Fai held onto her arms, keeping her above water. He wasn't smiling.

"We're going back to the island," he said, tugging her toward the distant shore.

"Wait! We can't go back. I saw something."

"It can wait."

The light in the serpent's mouth. The shine of its unblemished scales. Its powerful jaw and lack of teeth. _We were looking in the wrong place the whole time, _she thought. _The feather wasn't stuck to __its scales. It was stuck inside its throat__. _She pulled her arm free, treading water. "I know where Syaoran's feather is. I think I can get to it."

"Sakura-chan—"

"I _know _I can. I just need to get close enough."

"It's too dangerous."

They'd drifted apart now, far enough that, if she ducked under the water and swam straight down, Fai might not be able to catch up to her. _My window's closing, _she thought. _If I don't get Syaoran's feather now, I won't get another chance. _She sucked in a deep breath and plunged under the surface, kicking her legs to propel herself downward. A second later, Fai followed, moving gracefully through the water.

She didn't look at him. She knew what she had to do now. The water parted under her hands, the currents swirling around her, nudging her toward the giant sea serpent. Its beady red eyes panned up to meet hers as the creature swallowed the last few scraps of fish from her basket. She grabbed her fishing spear from where it was fastened to her swimsuit and pressed the point against her palm. Blood curled through the water, dispersing almost as soon as it left her palm. At the same time, she called on her magic, sealing the wound with a spell Yukito had taught her back in Clow.

Dozens of smaller serpents gathered, circling her just as they had when she'd unscrewed the top of the tuna basket. She held her breath, letting her body go still as the creatures searched in vain for the source of the blood. _Come on, _she thought, closing her eyes.

One of the smaller serpents bit another beast's tail. A cloud of blood exploded from the wound, drawing the attention of all the others. They swarmed, taking bites out of each other until there seemed to be more red in the water than blue. The largest serpent opened its mouth, revealing the faint glow at the back of its throat. _There! _she thought, reaching out as the monster shot toward her. She went in from the side, her arm shooting into the beast's throat.

The feather glowed brighter, stirring up gentle currents. Her fingers coiled around it, bending the pale brown fibrils, and she yanked it free.

The serpent reared back, the side of its jaw slamming into her torso. Bubbles rose from her lips, the world shifting from white to blue and back again. All the while, the monster flailed, streaks of light shooting down its body. Its cry of pain wrenched her heart as she spun through the water.

The serpent's wail cut off, and it collapsed, body sinking down to the ocean floor. Calcified coral snapped under the monster's weight. A great _thud _sounded when it hit the ground.

Sakura clutched the feather in her hands and started swimming for the surface.


	31. Twins

Chapter Thirty-One

Syaoran raised his makeshift staff, shifting to the side and spinning it in his hands. The blunt end slammed into Kurogane's staff. Bits of bark flaked off the weapon. The ninja countered, his hand sliding down the wooden shaft and giving him the leverage for a downward strike. Syaoran raised his weapon above his head to block, but the force of the impact make his arms go weak. He staggered back, breathless, and instinctively readjusted his weapon to block the next strike.

"Good," Kurogane grunted, nodding his approval. The next blow came from below, the ninja's weapon swinging upward from the ground. Rather than blocking this time, Syaoran threw his weight to the side, bracing one shoulder against the stone wall and pushing himself off it as soon as Kurogane's staff streaked by. He saw an opening and ducked low, letting his staff scrape along the cobblestones as he tried to sweep the ninja's ankles out from under him.

Kurogane's lips curved with the barest hint of a smile, and Syaoran knew he'd made a mistake. The ninja skipped nimbly over his attack, bringing his own weapon around before Syaoran could lift his staff to block. He heard the air parting next to his face and froze, eyes squeezing shut.

The staff stopped half an inch from his face. Syaoran opened his eyes, shying away from the weapon.

"You've fought before," Kurogane said, withdrawing his staff.

"Really?"

The man nodded, absently picking at the bark on his own weapon. He hadn't carved it away as he had with the staff he'd made for Syaoran. He tried to imagine how many splinters he'd have had if he'd been wielding a stick with bark instead of one carved smooth with a knife.

"The way you move makes it obvious," Kurogane said. "You're not experienced with a staff—probably not any specific weapon—but you're too agile to be inexperienced. Somewhere along the line, you either got a mentor or picked up some techniques."

"Oh." He frowned. "I don't remember doing that."

"Your reaction time is slow," the ninja continued, setting his staff down in Anemone's garden. Syaoran did the same, concealing it behind a row of colorful shrubs so the sight of it wouldn't upset Sakura when she returned. "And you've still got a lot to learn. I can teach you some of it, but you'll need to practice on your own time. And also . . ." He stepped forward, looming over him. Without warning, his hand weaved through Syaoran's hair, lifting it away from his face. "You're blind in your right eye."

_What? _He cocked his head to the side, then, not quite believing the ninja's statement, he placed a hand over his left eye. To his shock, the world went black, as if someone had wrapped a blindfold over his face. "Oh," he whispered, removing his hand. His heart pounded under his ribs. _I'm half-blind, _he thought, a chill sweeping through his lungs.

"You really didn't know," Kurogane said, lifting his eyebrows in disbelief.

"I . . . I guess not. I'm sorry." His shoulders slumped as he waited for a rebuke. Clearly, he'd missed something that should have been obvious. _I'm supposed to be smarter than this, _he thought. _I'm supposed to solve puzzles, not ignore inconsistencies._

Kurogane sighed. "Training's done for the day. Go inside. Get some rest. The princess will probably be back soon, anyway."

Ashamed at his newfound faults, he shuffled through the door. Kurogane followed him, casting a shadow that seemed to cover half the living room. He thought about going upstairs to lie down, then discarded the notion, not wanting to appear lazy in addition to being useless. He perched himself on the edge of the couch, leaning back so that if he fell asleep without warning, he'd fall onto the cushions and not the floor.

A moment later, Kurogane approached, handing him a canteen. "Keep hydrated. It'll make training you easier."

He took the canteen, surprised by the remark. "You mean you're still going to teach me?"

"Yeah, some. What else did you expect?"

"It's just . . ." He lifted his hand to his right eye, throat tightening at his body's betrayal. A moment later, a callused hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling his hand away from his face.

"Hey," Kurogane said. "Just because you're blind in one eye doesn't mean you have an excuse not to fight. That princess is out risking her life for you. Half-blind or not, you need to learn to defend yourself."

_He's not telling me to be careful, _Syaoran realized. _He's trying to make me stronger. He's giving me a chance to be important. _He bowed his head, grateful. "Then I want to learn everything I can from you."

The ninja grinned, tousling his hair. "You asked for it. Don't expect me to go easy on you, either. As soon as we reach a world with swords, you're in for it."

Syaoran blinked, both pleased and alarmed by the words. _This is it. The others will finally start treating me like an adult. _

A pleasant voice rang through the air, interrupting his moment of pride. "Syaoran! I'm back." Sakura burst through the doorway, clutching a pale brown feather in her hand.

"You found it," he said, surprised. Sakura beamed, and his heart jumped in his chest. She looked so radiant when she smiled, as if she'd captured the light of a thousand suns in her face.

"I did," Sakura said, walking past him and perching herself on the edge of the couch. "Lie down so you don't hit your head when you fall asleep."

Blushing, he walked over to the couch and laid back, folding his hands over his stomach. "Okay. Ready."

Smiling, Sakura walked over and dropped the feather just above his chest. It rippled, catching the light, and he felt a sudden buzzing sensation next to his heart. A tingling warmth spread through his body, chased by a wave of drowsiness. His eyelids slid shut without his permission, his hands becoming slack over his stomach.

He fell into a shallow sleep and dreamed of days past.

* * *

><p>Sakura watched him slip into unconsciousness. He looked so peaceful, even after only a moment. <em>Whatever you're remembering, <em>she thought, _I hope it's a happy memory. _

"He'll be out for a couple hours," Kurogane said, crossing his arms. "You might as well nap or something."

_I should practice my magic, or my archery. _She considered it a moment, then set the thought aside. She'd spent the past few days carving out time for all those activities. Now she needed rest. _And who knows if we'll find a warm bed in the next world? I should relax while I have the chance. _She wandered up to her bedroom, stretching her legs out on the stairs. Her training had come with a lot of walking around, and her legs ached whenever she put weight on them. She suspected it would be worse tomorrow.

Either way, she sunk into the mattress as if it had been made for her.

* * *

><p>A white tower stood amidst a black sky, highlighted by a thousand stars. Snow drifted down, dancing in a sea of darkness. Icicles several feet long had gathered along the tower's peak, pointy like teeth. Etched in stone, runes twisted together in intricate patterns, like colored threads stitched onto a plain cloth.<p>

Sakura stood at the base of the tower, neck craned to look up at the emaciated child trapped above. "Yuui!" the child called, gripping the icy metal bars of his prison cell. His voice reverberated with anguish, like a pack animal crying out as predators tore into its belly. "Yuui . . . _Yuui_ . . ."

"Stay right there!" Sakura called, heart clenching as the boy stuck his hands out the tiny window. "I'll find a way to get you down!"

"There is no way down," a timid voice whispered. Sakura whipped around to see an identical boy, dressed in rags, hair grown out and matted. "And even if there was, there's nothing here but death."

She crouched down, intent on helping the emaciated boy. She had no food with her, but surely she could try to find a way out of here. The tower seemed to be situated in a valley, but the valley walls weren't _so _steep. At least, they didn't look steep. But such a climb would have seemed insurmountable for a starving child like the one she saw now. _I can help him up, _she thought. _At the very least, I can save this one and go find help for the other . . . _

Her half-formed idea trailed off, her mind freezing on another aspect of the surroundings. She looked down, thoughts moving as slow as an ice-clogged river.

Perhaps the absence of the stench had kept her from seeing it before, or perhaps she'd been so focused on the dying children that she hadn't paid any attention to the ground under her feet. But now, looking at it, a horrible comprehension swept over her. _These are bodies. I'm standing on a pile of corpses. _

"They were all executed," said the boy. _Is that one Yuui? _she wondered, tilting her head up to look at the child in the tower. _They look so much alike. Twins? _

She turned her attention back to the boy called Yuui. "Why are you here?"

"He said . . ." Yuui gulped. "They all said . . . we were unlucky. The twins of misfortune. But, we didn't . . . We didn't do anything wrong. We were just born. That's all. We were just born." His voice started to shake, but instead of crying, he curled up into a little ball, shivering. Sakura reached forward to take his hand.

"Come on. I'll take you away from here."

"There is no 'away.' Only this place . . ."

She shook her head. "I don't believe that."

"You're not real."

"I _am _real, and I'm going to save you." She tugged on his hand, pulling him away from the tower. The boy jerked violently, yanking his hand away.

"No! I can't leave. I can't . . . My brother . . ."

"I'll take you away from here and send someone to take care of him."

The boy regarded her for a long moment, his chapped lips pressed into a thin line. "You're her, aren't you? The desert princess."

She drew back. "How do you know that?"

"He told me . . . It doesn't matter what he told me. What he _will _tell me?" The boy tilted his head to the side, as if confused. "Has he told me yet? I can't keep track. There is no time here. No time, only snow and ice and sorrow."

His words wrenched her heart until it felt like it would rupture. "I'll take you away from this place."

The boy lifted his haunted blue eyes to her face. Sakura flinched, some buried instinct recognizing the look. She knew . . . She recognized him, somehow. _Those eyes. Where have I seen them before?_

"You may be real," the boy said, "but you're not really here. To you, this is just another dream."

"A dream?"

He nodded. "That's how you came here. That's the only way you _could _come here." He looked down, pressing his face against his knees. "You can see the past, but you can't change it. You can see the future, but you're powerless to stop bad things from happening. My brother was like you, before we came here."

_What changed? _she wanted to ask, but her lips seemed disconnected from the rest of her body, as if her mouth had gone numb. She started to blink, then puzzled over her inability to do so. _Seeing the future in dreams? Didn't Yukito teach me about that once? _She tried to catch hold of the memory, but it fled from her mind, like a bird shooting into the sky to avoid being crushed under a camel's foot. The rest of her thoughts followed, pulling her away from the dream, away from the valley and the tower.

She felt like she was flying. But she might have been falling.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes:<em>

_So, I feel like this last bit needs a little explanation/justification. As we know from the Infinity arc, Sakura is a dreamseer. However, I wanted to give her some opportunity to develop as both a character and a magic-user throughout this story, so I'm basing her experience here off the assumption that she has very little, if any, experience dream-walking. She will be honing this skill for a while, though I do expect to use dream-seeing as a greater plot point later (why waste a perfectly good plot, after all?). The other reason I'm doing it this way is because I do not particularly want to rewrite the Ceres arc (as I did for _Shatterheart, _and as I will probably have to do at some point in another fic). I'm still expecting the Tsubasa gang to go to Ceres, but I don't want the discovery of Fai's past to dominate those chapters as it otherwise would. _

_There are other reasons why I'm introducing the dream-walking bit now, but I won't mention them, partly because I haven't fleshed out the details yet, and partly because telling you all now would ruin the suspense. But I can tell you it will be a heavy element in upcoming chapters. _


	32. Dreams

Chapter Thirty-Two

Fai jolted into awareness, head whipping forward as he sat up in bed. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, bringing with it the sour scent of fear. He clutched his chest, heart pounding under his fingertips as he tore himself away from the nightmare.

He dreamed often of the valley and the tower. Dreamed often of the real Fai, the one who he had condemned to death because of his own selfishness. Those memories had been burned so deeply into his psyche, he doubted he'd ever be able to bury them. Even now, decades after the trauma, the nightmares taunted him whenever he dared sleep.

He hadn't meant to fall asleep this time—he'd expected Syaoran to remain unconscious for a few hours as he recovered his memories, and he'd planned to wake Sakura soon after Syaoran stirred. While they'd slept, he'd returned to his room, intending to tidy up for Anemone. Instead, he'd fallen asleep.

And his dreams had been invaded.

He got out of bed, not pausing to consider his next move, and headed straight for Sakura's room.

* * *

><p>Sakura woke feeling faintly ill. It took her several seconds to roll out of bed, and several more to steady herself once she got to her feet. Most mornings, she woke up groggy—Touya usually had to pull her out of bed when she had things to do in the morning.<p>

_That dream, _she thought, snippets of it returning to her as she focused. A white tower against a black sky. Stars sprinkling the blanket of night. Two boys, one above, one below, withered to the bone, their eyes haunted. Sakura concentrated, trying to recall more specific details. She vaguely remembered the boy on the ground calling her a dreamseer. Yukito had taught her about dream-walking during their lessons, but she hadn't given it much thought. Supposedly, it was almost useless—changing the future often cost more than enduring it, and since she'd never shown a particular aptitude for it, she'd disregarded most of those lessons.

But now, she stood, unable to remember any details from the dream, barely aware of its general content. _I should have listened to Yukito more, _she thought, rubbing her temples. A dull pain throbbed inside her skull. _Maybe then I'd have less trouble remembering. _

Footsteps echoed on the stone steps outside her door, moving quickly. Sakura perked up, taking several steps toward the doorway before Fai burst in, his face as pale as bone. Their eyes met, and the icy blue color resonated with her, though she couldn't pinpoint why. _Part of the dream? _she wondered. But if it had been, she'd already forgotten._  
><em>

"Is something wrong?" she asked, edging back.

Fai stared at her for a long moment, eyes wide with shock and panic. His lips parted, and he wrapped his arms around his torso as if to stave off the cold. Which, in this tropical world, struck her as odd.

"Fai-san, are you all right?"

He blinked rapidly, appearing to regain composure. After a moment, he said, "I heard you scream."

"Oh." She cocked her head to the side, puzzled by the blankness in his tone. "I was screaming?"

"I thought you were hurt, so I came down to check on you."

"I see." She frowned. _I've never screamed in my sleep before.__  
><em>

"Did you have a nightmare?" Fai asked, shifting his weight between his feet and eyeing her as he might a wild animal._  
><em>

"It was . . . a disturbing dream. I can't remember much of it now."

"What _do _you remember?"

"A tower. A valley. And snow. It was snowing, big clumps of white." She hesitated, unsure whether to mention the two boys when her recollection of them was already fading. They had looked so fragile, so haunted. Was it right to share their pain with someone else when she couldn't help them anyway?

"Anything else?" Fai pressed. Sakura hesitated, then shook her head. "All right," Fai said. "But if you have any other strange dreams, I'm happy to listen." No spark of joy or amusement glittered in his eyes as he smiled. "In any case, Syaoran-kun will be waking up soon. You should probably come downstairs and get ready to go."

"Good idea," she said, not wanting to risk another dream when she already felt like an invader. She climbed out of bed, watching Fai retreat up the steps as if something had frightened him. _What was that all about? _

She changed into the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd left Clow. She knew nothing of the next world's fashion trends or customs, but she expected her pink and white cloak would look less out of place than the frilly blue garment she'd picked up in the marketplace. It was the least ostentatious outfit she'd found in the time she'd taken to look, and with so few people wandering around the island, she hadn't given much thought to appearances. Mostly, she'd just needed something to change into so she wouldn't have to keep wearing the same three sets of clothes she'd been wearing in the last few worlds.

Dressed, she headed downstairs. Kurogane sat on the floor beside the couch, arms crossed in front of his chest. If he'd been asleep, he gave no sign. His red eyes were open and alert the moment she entered the living room. His makeshift staff sat at his side, within easy reach. "Up already?"

"Yes." She took a few more steps into the circular living room, then spoke. "I had a nightmare," she said, although her dream had felt more eerie and surreal than truly frightening. "Since it woke me up, I thought I'd take Mokona and start storing our things."

"Yeah, good idea." Kurogane reached behind him and grabbed Mokona by the ears. The creature complained loudly, still half-asleep. "Here."

Sakura rushed over to rescue Mokona, cradling her in both hands. "You shouldn't be so mean," she said, clutching the tiny creature to her chest.

"Well, that thing shouldn't be so annoying."

Her eyes narrowed. "She was _asleep_."

"On _my _armor." Kurogane gestured sharply to the pile of metal plating behind him.

In her arms, Mokona squirmed. "Kurogane is _mean_! Kurogane picked Mokona up by the ears while Mokona was sleeping!"

Sakura massaged the creature's ears with her thumb, looking at the ninja. "You should apologize."

Kurogane smirked. "Yeah, like that's going to happen."

"Kurogane can't apologize," Mokona said. "He's heartless."

"Am not," Kurogane growled. Behind the childish retort, however, Sakura heard a hint of genuine anger. Instinctively, she held Mokona just a little tighter to her chest.

"Let's go," she said, walking toward the front door. "We'll be leaving soon and we need to gather our things."

She went to the alley where she'd spent hours practicing her archery and asked Mokona to store her targets in the void of her stomach. It still unnerved Sakura to watch objects shrink, folding up like paper, and fly into the creature's mouth. It reminded her of the powerful magic that carried the rest of them between dimensions.

It reminded her of the attack on Clow, of the faceless soldiers who had stepped through rifts in time and space the day Syaoran had lost his memories. _Such powerful magic, _she thought, feeling as if a cold wind had scraped against her skin. _And worse, we know nothing about the sorcerer behind it. _

Once her targets had been stored away, she returned to Anemone's house to gather the other miscellaneous items she'd collected during their travels. Her clothes, bow, arrows, and the few personal grooming items she'd purchased could probably make it through the journey between worlds, regardless of how they landed, but there was the matter of blending in to consider. After landing in Ookami-kuni, she'd learned that not all cultures reacted fondly to magic, hostile or not. While she couldn't avoid the spectacle caused by falling out of the sky, she_ could _make herself appear unthreatening.

_Of course, that leaves you without a weapon, _she thought as her bow and arrows disappeared with the rest of her things. _Not that you're skilled enough to use it well anyway. _

Finished gathering her things, she returned to the living room. Syaoran had woken, though he still looked a little groggy. A smile rose to her lips without a conscious thought. "Good morning—ah, afternoon," she said. "Did you remember anything interesting?"

He smiled back at her, but the tension in his shoulders indicated his dreams had not been pleasant. "Yes. An old . . . teacher of mine."

She noted the hesitation in his voice. "Do you remember your teacher's name?"

After a brief hesitation, Syaoran nodded. "Seishirou. I met him in a desert country, but I'm not sure whether it was Clow or another place. He taught me how to fight."

At this, Kurogane looked up. "Well, that explains that."

"Explains what?" Sakura asked, looking between them.

"Kid knew how to fight before he lost his memories. Now we know who taught him."

"Right," Syaoran said, frowning slightly.

"Is something wrong?" Sakura asked.

"No. No, it's just . . . Maybe I was too young to notice it before, but in my memory, Seishirou seemed a little . . . manipulative. Perhaps not entirely stable."

On the floor, Kurogane tensed. "You think it's something we should worry about?"

Syaoran hesitated. "I'm not sure. I don't think so, but . . . He wasn't from that country, and knew very little about its customs. And he said he was searching for people from somewhere very far away." His eyebrows pulled together as they sometimes did when he studied an ancient culture.

"You think he could travel through dimensions like us," Kurogane guessed, eyes never wavering from Syaoran's face.

"He could have meant they were in another country in that world, except for the fact that he was searching for something that shouldn't exist in the world where we met."

"Searching for what?" Sakura asked, leaning forward.

"Vampires."

There was a beat of silence. "Um . . . Syaoran . . . vampires aren't real."

"Yeah, your teacher sounds crazy," Kurogane remarked.

"I know. But doesn't it make sense, in a way? We've seen just a few worlds, and already, we've encountered wolves shaped more like leopards and people with scales covering their skin. Just look at Mokona," he said, nodding toward the little creature. "Even with as little as I remember, I'm almost positive I never encountered anything like her in all the countries I visited with my father. Considering all of that, the idea that vampires could be real seems a lot easier to believe."

Kurogane sighed. "Well, if you run into your old teacher, maybe you can ask him about it. For now, let's focus on the present." His eyes flickered to where Sakura stood. "We're leaving this world, right?"

"Right. Where's Fai-san?"

"Here," the magician called, coming down the steps. He showed no signs of the inexplicable tension she'd seen just an hour ago, instead smiling brightly as he set his bags on the floor. "Mokona, could you please store those for a bit? I don't want anything to get damaged in the landing."

"Okay." Mokona leapt out of her arms and opened her mouth wide, drawing Fai's bag into her mouth. If Sakura paid attention, she could feel the distinct resonance of the creature's magic, separate from her own.

"If we're all packed, can we get going?" Kurogane asked, donning his armor.

"Don't be so impatient, Kuro-pin," Fai sang. "We don't want to forget anything important."

"If your things are so important, why don't you just carry them?"

Fai laughed, stepping toward Mokona. "Everyone in the circle. Come on now."

They all converged in the middle of the living room, keeping well inside the magic circle as white wings unfurled from Mokona's back. Moments later, the dimensional sea spilled out around them, swallowing them up and taking them away from the tropical world. They hovered in the blackness, time losing meaning until a spot of light formed in the distance, growing rapidly as they rushed toward it. Sakura closed her eyes, passing through the portal, and braced herself for the landing.


	33. Technological Marvels

_Author's Notes:_

_Hello, everyone! I'm writing about that poll I took a few chapters back regarding which world you wanted the Tsubasa gang to visit next. Your votes were all very helpful, and they gave me some direction in where I wanted to go with this._

_Unfortunately, I'm afraid I must tell you we're going in reverse order of the worlds you wanted to see. Why, you ask? Well, as a writer, I know that the more exciting bits should occur closer to the climax of the story (part of that whole rising action thing most of us learned about, repeatedly and unnecessarily, in our English classes). Another reason for the flip is that some of the worlds that received a lot of votes fit better thematically with the later parts of the story. So you'll see the worlds that received the least number of votes first, then we'll move on to more exciting worlds. But fear not! This may not be the world most of you were hoping to see, but I assure you, it will be interesting and it will contain important plot points. Plus, I've already gotten a significant portion of this world written out already, so updates should be relatively steady for a few weeks (apparently, my Muse wanted me to work on this story instead of _Shatterheart_. But I shan't complain. This story needs my attention, too). Thanks, as always, to everyone who reads and reviews this._

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirty-Three<p>

The buzz of machinery sang in her bones as she shot up to the fiftieth floor. Ears popping, she grabbed onto the rail running around the edge of the elevator, keeping herself steady as her stomach lurched.

They'd landed in Avantine three weeks ago in what Sakura had later discovered to be a massive trash receptacle, and though their previous world-jumping had accustomed them to new surroundings, she'd never encountered a place like this.

The elevator stopped, its doors opening with a quiet creak. She grabbed the cart she'd borrowed to transport her purchases and pushed it through the opening, moving fast, as if the doors would close on her if she didn't hurry. Perhaps they would—she had yet to see anyone getting sliced in half by the automatic doors, but it paid to be careful.

She made her way down the hallway, passing under the bright panels of light embedded in the ceiling. As far as she could tell, the intense light had no magical source. Nothing they'd encountered in this world did. But Syaoran had dubbed this an industrial world based on some of the more advanced countries he'd visited with his father, so she chalked all the strange inventions and phenomena up to the world's technology and tried to pretend that everything here was normal.

When she reached their apartment, she slid her key card—another odd invention—through the slot by the door and watched the door open for her. "I'm back!"

"Welcome back," several voices called.

"I brought supplies," she said, pushing the cart into the living room. Syaoran and Kurogane had laid out hundreds of metal pieces on the floor, organizing them by size, similarity, and function. Several papers with instructions had been laid out next to parts she couldn't imagine putting together.

As she wheeled the cart in, Syaoran stood. His left cheek was smudged with oil. "You'll never guess what I learned today," he said, leaning forward on his tiptoes. She smiled at his exuberance, inviting him to explain. "Okay, so you know how all the lights here are so much brighter compared to the lightbulbs in our world? Well, I was looking on the computer and I found an article about different kinds of electrical currents. It turns out that what we have in Clow is something called direct current, while the electricity this world uses is called alternating current."

She tried to follow along as Syaoran's explanation became increasingly more complex. But within thirty seconds, his rapidly-acquired knowledge led to such confusing technical jargon that all she could do was smile and nod in the appropriate places.

"And I was thinking: what would happen if we brought this information back to _our _world? The ramifications would be huge. We might even have another industrial revolution, like this world did. Oh, I studied some history while I was looking up electricity, by the way. Apparently, this man named Nikola Tesla started experimenting with electricity back in the—"

"Kid, I don't think she's following what you're saying."

Syaoran glanced over his shoulder, then back at her, looking abashed. "Ah, sorry. I got a little excited, I guess. But isn't that amazing?"

"It is," she said. "And I'm sure that technology will benefit Clow once we get back. But first . . ." She grabbed a cardboard box from the cart and held it out for him. "These are the parts you said you needed for the airboards, and _these—_" She hefted another box off the cart as Syaoran set the first at the edge of the pile. "—are the maintenance supplies you asked for."

He beamed like a child receiving an unexpected gift. "Great." He set this box in the center of the pile, then crouched next to the body of the airboard he'd been assembling for the better part of two days. A few feet away, Kurogane studied the instructions, scowling at the paper.

"Are you sure it's supposed to look like this?"

"I think so," Syaoran answered. "It'll look a lot better once we're done with it."

"Tournament's in a week, you know."

"If we get to part five of the instructions by tonight, we should have time to test it out before the first round."

Sensing an end to her part in the conversation, Sakura left them to their work, heading into the kitchen to find Fai. "How did things go while I was gone?"

"Fine." The magician studied the metallic cylinder on the counter, then poked at the touch screen.

"Invalid command," it announced in a voice that was neither female nor male.

Fai sighed. "When I get this thing to work, it's like magic, but most of the time it won't listen to me."

"Here, let me try," she said, stepping up to the autochef. She studied the screen for a moment, then scrolled through the menu, looking at the pictures since she couldn't read the squarish script next to them. She'd gotten it to work a few times since they'd arrived, so hopefully she could do it again. But when she pressed an image of a plate of steak, the mechanical voice repeated its earlier response.

"Invalid command."

"Why is the command invalid?" she asked, then jumped when the disembodied voice answered.

"Household does not contain necessary components for selected recipe. Please select an alternate recipe or order components from the main menu."

Fai cocked his head to the side, looking uncharacteristically frustrated. "How did you get it to say all that? I've been talking to it for an hour and it only tells me my commands are invalid."

She shrugged. "Maybe the wording is important. Anyway, it sounds like we don't have the right ingredients. How do you get to the main menu?"

"Let me see." Fai leaned forward, eyebrows slanting in concentration as he switched between screens. After almost a minute and a half, he reached the main menu. "There. Now what?"

She shrugged. "I guess we ask it how to shop for food. Um . . . How do you shop for food?"

"Select 'shop' from the main menu and search for ingredients by name, category, or recipe," the computer replied.

"Which one is the 'shop' button?"

"Invalid command."

She groaned. "And it was going so well. Um . . . Please indicate where to find the shop button."

"Invalid command."

_No wonder Fai-san sounds frustrated, _she thought. "Open shop menu."

"Acknowledged." The screen changed, bringing up a list of ingredients.

"I can't figure it out," Fai said. "The machine makes no sense. How is 'find the shop button' an invalid command? And why does it obey the phrase 'open shop menu?' It's the _same _thing." He made a frustrated gesture.

Sakura shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we'll just have to keep trying."

Fai's shoulders slumped. "Great. Wonderful."

They spent the next thirty minutes poking the touch screen, making increasingly irritated commands, cursing quietly, and making a valiant effort _not _to pick up the hammer in the living room and beat the autochef into submission. Eventually, however, they reached a screen requesting payment information for the groceries they'd purchased.

"Credit or debit?" the machine asked.

Sakura glanced at Fai, who merely shrugged. "Debit," she said.

"Please present ID card."

She took her ID out of her pocket and slid it through the machine's slot. After three hours in Avantine, they'd come to the conclusion that, not only was having an official ID convenient, it was absolutely necessary for them to get food, clothing, or any other necessity. Due to them not being in any of Avantine's databases, it had taken nearly seven hours for them to be issued temporary IDs, by which point Kurogane had been snarling at the man behind the desk and Fai had been singing the forty-third verse of a song about a woman who kept finding increasingly amusing ways to torture her husband, including one instance in which she tied him to a lamp and made him follow her around all day.

"Insufficient funds," the autochef announced.

"Well, that was unexpected," Fai said. "What now?"

"I guess we pay with credit." She touched the appropriate icons, then smiled in relief when the autochef accepted her payment.

"Storage unit will be restocked within thirty minutes," it said. "You may order fresh food from the recipe book, or you may wait until delivery arrives and order at your convenience."

"There," she said, beaming. "I think we've got it. Now what do we want for dinner?"

It took another ten minutes to make it back to the recipe menu and order the steak Fai had been looking for when she'd arrived. Once they'd ordered it, the machine told them they had approximately twenty-seven minutes before their food would be ready, then urged them to shop through the newest deals.

"I think it's time to take a break," Fai said, stepping back. "Shall we work on your magic a bit?"

"Okay." Since the airboard project had taken up most of the living room, they went to her bedroom.

"All right," Fai said, sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed. "Let's see how much progress you've made."

She nodded, picking up a small leather pouch from the windowsill. A handful of coins jingled as she lifted it, sliding together with a metallic sound. In the Sapphire Islands, Fai had tried to teach her how to levitate things with her mind. Though she'd been too busy to make much progress then, she'd been working on the same skill every day since she'd come to Avantine, and she'd attained a small measure of success with it.

She closed her eyes, focusing her mind so she could draw on the reservoir of magic in her body. It hummed under her skin as she reached for it, a formless sensation that seemed to move randomly through her body when she wasn't controlling it. Her hours of practice had brought a clearer understanding of how to manipulate that power, allowing her to gather it up into a concentrated bundle. Once she had, she moved it down her arms until it became a point of fire in her fingertips.

_Here comes the hard part, _she thought, opening her eyes and willing the magic to extend beyond her body to act on the bag of coins. It seeped through her fingers like syrup dripping through tiny holes, then expanded, spreading like mist to surround the pouch. She narrowed her focus to the leather bag, eyebrows slanting in concentration. The magic tightened around it until she could _feel _the coin pouch the same way she could feel her body.

And then she lifted it.

It floated in the air, spinning slowly as she poured more magic into it. Her sense of control extended to the coins inside, until she could sense their individual positions. Slowly, every muscle taut with concentration, she loosened the string securing the top of the pouch and began removing coins one by one, letting them hover in the air around the bag.

She managed to hold five coins in the air before her control broke. All at once, the magic she hadn't consumed fled in all directions. The bag and the coins dropped, no longer suspended by the cloud of energy, clattering to the floor with an unmusical tinkle.

"Very good," Fai said, sounding genuinely impressed. Sakura hurried to gather up the coins she'd dropped, not wanting to make any alterations to the weight or contents of the pouch.

"I don't have much control over it," she admitted. "If I lose focus for even a second, everything I'm holding drops before I can catch it."

"That's only to be expected. Your power will grow as you use it, and so will your focus. Right now, you're demonstrating an instinctive control over objects confined to your field of influence. From here, you'll be able to expand that field and even split it off into multiple independent parts so you don't have to worry about objects breaking out of your field of influence and disrupting your magic."

She stared at him. "Fai-san?"

"Yes?"

"What's a field of influence?"

He blinked rapidly, then grinned. "Ah right. I forgot you don't have much of a background in magical theory." He picked up the pouch and held it up, eyes glinting with excitement. "Where to start, I wonder?"

"Why don't you start with when you first learned about magic?"

His smile froze for a moment, the light in his eyes dying. Slowly, his expression thawed, his smile waning. "I don't really like to talk about that."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She looked down.

"How about we start with my first formal lessons," Fai suggested. "That would fit better with what you're supposed to be learning anyway."

"Okay," she said, hoping to banish the sorrow glittering in Fai's eyes. He smiled wanly at her quick agreement, then sat back.

"All right. Fetch me some paper and a pen. This might get complicated."


	34. Science Lessons

_Author's Notes:_

_Warning: This chapter contains copious amounts of science. Well, sort of. It's science mixed with magic. We'll call it pseudo-science (Anyone who's ever wondered when they were ever going to apply those lessons in science class now has an answer). Anyway, it's been a while since I've taken any physics or chemistry classes, so if I've made any mistakes, please let me know. I haven't been able to identify any flaws with this system yet, but it's entirely possible that I'm disregarding some obvious rule/concept that should apply here. _

_Also, this chapter talks a bit about alchemy, a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy developed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In this case, I'm treating alchemy similarly to how it's treated in Fullmetal Alchemist, although you certainly don't need to read the FMA manga or watch its anime to understand this concept. The first basic principle of alchemy involves Equivalent Exchange, meaning that your final product has the same mass, and contains the same elemental compounds in the same amounts, as the materials you started with. Interestingly, Equivalent Exchange is also used in the Tsubasa universe, particularly in regard to Yuuko's prices. Since we don't actually see much of Clow or its world in the manga, I'm going to write this as if alchemy is one of the primary sciences studied in Sakura and Syaoran's world, and is therefore something Sakura has a limited knowledge of._

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirty-Four<p>

"Now," Fai said, drawing a dot in the center of the paper, "for the purposes of this lesson, think of your field of influence as the sealed bubble inside which a person performs magic. The first thing you need to learn is how to control the shape and size of your field of influence in order to conserve energy and maintain your spell. Most magic-users have an innate sense of their own field, but prior to being trained, they think of the process in reverse."

Sakura cocked her head to the side. "What does that mean?"

"An untrained magician—or sorcerer, or wizard, or rune-writer—tends to focus first on the dispersion of energy into an area, overestimating the amount of space needed for their spell. This makes their magic inefficient, as their energy tends to disperse too much, forcing them to pour more energy into their field to get the desired effect." He drew a series of smaller dots around the larger dot in the center, then drew a wobbly circle around them. "This is what a novice's field of influence tends to look like. You can see on the diagram that the dots are loosely packed and the field takes up almost half the page. What you _want _looks more like this." He flipped the page, drew the large center dot, then drew a bunch of smaller, closely-packed dots right next to it. "This field of influence is much smaller, but because the magic contained within it is more dense, it's easier to manipulate things within its boundaries." He drew a circle around the dots. "For rune-casting, this is the space in which one would draw runes to shape spells. Your type of magic will be somewhat different, in that you're not using runes, but an expression of energy based on intention and imagery rather than concrete rules and logic. Does this make sense so far?"

She nodded.

"Good." He flipped the page over again, showing the amateur's field of influence, and drew a medium-sized circle within the large one. "This is about where you are," he said, tracing the circle with his index finger. "You have some control over your field of influence, but most of that is unconscious—a product of your previous training. You don't expel magic at random, but you still aren't confining it to an efficient space. I would say your control of it matches that of a student who's been practicing for, hmm, about six months."

She wilted. "Oh." _But I've trained almost half my life under Yukito, _she thought. True, she'd avoided those lessons when she could and paid little attention when she couldn't, but she'd never expected to make much use of her magic. Not in the peaceful country of Clow. Not in a world where magic had been such a rare, understudied gift. Lessons in politics, history, and reading had seemed much more practical. _Maybe it's no surprise that my magic is so underdeveloped. _

Fai smiled, hearing the disappointment in her response. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. I just want to give you a baseline of your talent as defined by Ceresian standards. Every culture has a different way of expressing magic, and whatever your previous tutors have been teaching you might be as valid as my way of doing it."

"I see." That didn't make her feel much better, but at least it meant she still had some potential as a magic-user.

"Moving on." Fai flipped the paper over to show the diagram representing the skilled magician. "Another thing you need to learn is that once you create a field of influence, you can move and shape it at will without gaining or losing any power. They call this the Law of Conservation of Energy, which applies to any isolated system, such as a separate dimension or a sealed room."

"That sounds very . . . scientific."

"Magic _is _science." He set the paper down, gesturing in excitement. "And when you look at it that way, you start to see that magic is not just something present in magic users, but something within the confines of the world itself that can be harnessed and altered to meet the requirements of a spell. How much do you know about chemistry?"

"Um . . ."

"Perhaps your people preferred the word alchemy?" Fai suggested.

"Oh, that." She frowned. "I wasn't very good at it."

"But I'm assuming you did some experimentation, yes? Turned a liquid into a gas, made something change color, wrote out chemical equations? Things like that." At her blank look, he swept on. "Anyway, the principles are the same. You use different components—in our case magic, runes, and intention—to create a new substance or to break down an existing substance into its components. Science and magic are both about manipulating the natural state of things to control or create something new, and while the methods vary greatly, both follow the basic rules of the universe. You can't change the basic components of a substance, only their configuration, and changing that requires energy. But that's getting a bit technical, I suppose. For now, just remember that once you start working magic in a field of influence, it becomes a sealed environment. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out. If anything _does _go in or out, the seal breaks. That's what happened when you dropped the coins earlier. One of the objects crossed the wall separating the field from the rest of the world, so the whole field collapsed and all the magic leaked out."

"Oh. But if that's the reason, why would you _want _to create a smaller field? Wouldn't it be better to make it as large as possible so that you're less likely to have something drift off to the edge?"

"Remember that your field of influence can stretch and change shape once it's formed."

Her eyebrows knit together. "I don't see how that changes anything."

Fai paused, apparently trying to think of a way to explain. _My knowledge must seem so limited to him, _Sakura thought, looking down.

"It's a bit like blowing up a balloon, then trying to squeeze it until it pops," Fai said, spreading his hands to mimic the look of a balloon being inflated. "If you fill the balloon up all the way—that is, making it as large as possible—the increased volume means that the surface area of the balloon gets stretched, making the material very thin and easy to break. If you only fill the balloon up halfway, it's almost impossible to pop it without a sharp instrument because the skin of the balloon hasn't stretched. The larger your field of influence, the easier it is for someone or something to break it. A smaller field, however, can keep even solid objects from passing through its shell. It also gives you a much better sense of what you're controlling because there's much less mass inside a smaller field to distract you."

"I see."

"And that's really all you need to know about that, at least for now. Later, we'll talk about drawing energy from the environment rather than yourself. That _can _get dangerous, though, so don't try that without me, all right?"

"Okay," she said, since she didn't have the faintest idea _how _she to do that, even if she'd wanted to.

"I'm going to check and see if our dinner's getting close. I'll call you when it's done."

"Thanks." She watched him disappear through the doorway, then glanced down at the sheet of paper he'd left behind. The diagrams made it seem so simple, like concentrating her magic was as easy as imagining a skin around the area where she meant to contain it. _Could it really be so easy? _

Frowning, she picked up the leather pouch and focused her magic in her hands. This time, she tried to visualize a barrier between her magic and the rest of the room. Then, she let the magic sizzling in her fingertips leak out into the bubble, filling it up without changing its shape. Splitting her concentration between the bubble and her magic, she tried to levitate the pouch.

And felt the bubble burst.

She sighed, her magic scattering like ash in the wind. She hadn't even _moved _the coin pouch this time. It was like trying to divide her mind into three parts. She could focus on one aspect of Fai's lessons and succeed with a little effort, but splitting her concentration between the bubble, the magic, and the pouch made even this supposedly simple task incredibly difficult. _Maybe I just need more practice, _she thought._ These concepts are so simple, __but together, it's like . . . _

_ Like trying to write out an alchemic formula without knowing your components. _She blinked rapidly as Fai's comparisons suddenly clicked together in her mind. _That's why he wanted me to think of magic as a science. It has rules. It's logical. But you have to understand what you have and what you're trying to do before you can get anything done. _

She sat back, thinking through the things Fai had explained to her. In just a few minutes, he had touched on half a dozen topics, reciting facts with the ease of a scholar. Fai didn't just know the theories, he understood them well enough to recall them without hesitation. _The principles of magic are second-nature to him, _she thought. _And that means I have to practice them until they're second nature to me. _

She left the coin pouch sitting on the bed, focusing instead on gathering energy in her fingertips, as she'd done before. Within her body, it flowed with relative ease, like water running through a channel wherever she directed it. Controlling it outside her body took much more concentration. That meant she had to focus on that first.

She breathed in, imagining a closed bubble in the space just beyond her fingertips. Magic seeped out of her skin, gathering inside the allotted space. If she closed her eyes, she could see it, a dim but present glow just beyond her normal range of perception. It twisted the way she imagined the air spun before it grew into a tornado, circling around one central point in the middle of the bubble.

Abruptly, she felt the field burst, all the magic dissipating like a cloud scrubbed from the sky. She sighed. "What did I do that time?" she wondered aloud, shoulders sinking. _I almost had it. _

She tried again, gathering her magic and focusing it, but this attempt failed, too. As did the next attempt, and the five that followed. She understood the concept, and she could focus on what needed to be done, yet she couldn't accomplish it. _Maybe I just need more practice, _she thought. Yukito had often chided her for not attending her lessons. Her lack of effort hadn't hindered her lessons much when she'd been in Clow, but she'd never struggled like this until she'd left. _It could be that I'm not working hard enough, _she thought. _I've spent too many years only focusing on what comes naturally to me. Now, if I don't practice, I'll never get anywhere with my magic. _

She sat up, refocusing. She would either succeed or she would keep failing until she figured out what was going wrong. Either way, she had to keep working.


	35. Confessions

Chapter Thirty-Five

"Sakura-chan! It's time for dinner!" Fai called from the kitchen.

"Coming!" She hurried to the living room and saw with relief that the meal they'd had so much trouble ordering had come out perfectly. Five plates lined the kitchen counter, all looking like something Sakura had seen on the televisions she'd discovered in this world. "It looks wonderful."

"I should hope so," Fai said, handing her a plate. "I think it would have been easier to cook it ourselves."

She nodded in agreement, then sat down on the plastic-covered couch in the living room so she could start eating. Moments later, Syaoran sat down next to her, an identical plate in his grease-stained hands. "Make any progress on the magic lessons?" he asked.

"Yes. Fai-san taught me all about fields of influence. Once I practice enough, I should be a lot more capable."

"Good." He beamed at her until her heart started pounding. _He's always so genuine, _she thought, her own lips pulling up in an unconscious smile. _He's almost back to his old self. _

The thought cast a shadow over her moment of joy, and her reflexive response—_he'll never be his old self again—_had her smile wilting. Puzzlement broke out across Syaoran's face, followed by worry. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked.

"No, no. It's just . . . How are you feeling?"

The confusion returned. "I'm fine."

"Any dizzy spells lately?"

He shook his head.

"Sleeping any more than normal?"

"No."

"Feeling lethargic?"

"No . . . Sakura," he said, surprising her by calling her by her name alone. "I'm fine. Really."

"She's worried about you, kid," Kurogane interjected, glancing up at them from his spot on the floor. He held his fork in his fist, like a toddler trying to manipulate a piece of silverware for the first time. "We all are."

The room quieted at the ninja's words. _But Kurogane never worries about us, _Sakura thought, staring at the red-eyed man.

"What?" he demanded. "We don't know how dangerous this world is—all we know is that it's not like any place we've been to before. And with the race coming up, we've got a lot to be worried about."

"I'm going to compete," Syaoran responded. "They're _my _feathers—if anything, I should be the one putting myself at risk to get them, not any of you."

Sakura shook her head, but said nothing. They'd argued about it the day they'd heard the grand prize for the race would be one of Syaoran's feathers. The airboard tournament required teams of three, with one player featured in each round and the final round played as a relay race. Mokona, of course, couldn't compete, and Sakura and Syaoran had just barely skimmed past the age requirement. Kurogane had agreed to be part of the team without hesitation, claiming that he needed an outlet, since he couldn't fight anyone in this world without breaking several laws.

The problem, then, had been Syaoran's insistence on joining the team. Sakura had managed to sway Fai to agree that Syaoran wasn't ready to do anything too dangerous, but Kurogane and Syaoran had insisted that it was time for him to take a more active role in their search. Mokona had said that she didn't want _anyone _getting hurt in the race, and thus couldn't choose who should join the team. With Fai's ambivalence, Sakura had been forced to agree to letting Syaoran risk himself.

She didn't like it. Not even a little.

Syaoran shifted uncomfortably beside her. "It'll be all right," he said. "We'll make it through."

"I know." But she couldn't meet his eyes.

"Kid's gotta learn how to take care of himself at some point," Kurogane said, as if Syaoran couldn't hear him. "Better to test him out here before we land somewhere more dangerous."

"Right. Of course." She stabbed a piece of steak with her fork and shoved it in her mouth so she wouldn't have to say anything else. She didn't want Syaoran to think that she considered him helpless, but she couldn't believe how casually he had put himself at risk for one tournament. _Yet this is our only chance, _she thought, unable to smother the worry she felt. Everything she'd done since the start of this journey had been for him. Couldn't he see how dangerous this was?

Couldn't he see how much the idea of losing him frightened her?

_It doesn't matter, _she thought._ We're already signed up. There are no substitutions, even with a legitimate reason. _

"I think I should go practice my magic," she said, shoving one more piece of steak into her mouth and standing up.

No one spoke, but a moment later, Syaoran followed, pausing only to set his half-full plate on the counter as he pursued her past the sink and down the hallway. "Sakura, wait."

She slowed, inhaling sharply. Her vision blurred for a moment, eyes filming with tears. Moments later, Syaoran captured her hand, holding it between his like he might hold a rare butterfly. "Wait," he whispered. "I know you're mad, but it's not fair that you have to risk yourself all the time for me. You're a princess. I'm just a commoner. I was never worthy of your attention to begin with."

A jolt of anger shot through her chest, sudden and surprising, like a splinter of lightning. She rounded on him, grabbing him by both arms. "Don't ever say that! Don't _ever _say you're not worthy of my attention!"

"S-Sakura, I . . ."

"Why do you think I saved you in the first place?" she demanded. "Because I wanted to go on a trip through the universe? Because I wanted to see mermaids and shoot arrows and fly around on a piece of sheet metal?"

He blinked rapidly. "I . . ."

"I did it because I _care _about you! I did it because I didn't want you to die. And now you're risking your life in some stupid race because you think you're a burden to us. But you're not." She faltered, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Why would you put yourself at risk like that? Don't you realize you're the most important person in the world to me?"

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he lifted his hands to frame her face. "Why am I so important to you?" he asked, his hands warm on her cheeks. "I'd never even met you before I woke up in Ookami-kuni. How do you know who I am?"

She steeled herself against the reminder. _He will never know about our relationship before __this journey. He'll never remember me. _She took a breath to steady herself, then looked down. "I . . . I saw you in a dream," she lied. "Before we ever met, I had dreams about you. The first time I ever saw you, you'd already lost your memories. You were _dying_." Anguish twisted through her voice. "And I couldn't . . . I couldn't just _leave _you there, so when Yukito offered to send me to Yuuko's shop, I had to go." She met his eyes and saw the faint redness to his cheeks. "I cared about you. I still do."

"Sakura . . ." His fingertips skimmed down her face, coming to rest over the sensitive skin of her neck. "I never knew you felt that way about me. I thought I must have been imagining things."

"No." She stepped forward, heart pounding with a strange mix of excitement and fear. Her hand wound through his hair, and she took a moment to appreciate the softness of it. "You weren't imagining anything. Syaoran, I . . ."

"I think I'm in love with you," he whispered, the red in his cheeks blooming to a deep crimson.

"I love you, too," she said, pleasure singing through her veins. She let her fingers trail down the side of his face. "And I . . . I want to . . ." She inhaled, then found that her breath was trembling too much to allow for speech. Her fingers curled, pressing into the back of Syaoran's neck and pulling him toward her.

Their lips met like two worlds colliding. A fierce wave of triumph tore through her chest, obliterating all her insecurities. His hands locked around her arms, holding her to him. _He's so warm, _she thought, clinging to him as pleasure burned through her veins.

"Sakura . . ."

Her heart fluttered. She'd thought having him call her by her name alone had been a rush, but hearing him say it so tenderly sent another jolt of warmth through her body. "Yes?"

"You're beautiful."

She smiled against his lips, opening her eyes. He met her gaze, his expression clouded over with desire. "I mean that," he said. "From the moment I first woke up, I always thought you were beautiful."

She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his once more. His lips tasted like honey. "Thank you," she said.

"And . . . I know you're worried about the race. But it's going to be all right. _We're _going to be all right."

She hesitated, then nodded. "Just be careful, okay? I don't want to lose you."

"You won't." He rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. "I promise."


	36. Veiled Accusations

Chapter Thirty-Six

Kurogane watched the kids split up from the corner of his eye, then sighed. "Well, that was sudden," he muttered.

"Kuro-buu, you shouldn't _peep_. It's impolite."

He raised his head to glare at the mage, but managed only a flat stare. Damn it all, but he'd grown used to those stupid nicknames. "Whatever," he said, standing up and walking over to the kitchen to put his plate in the dishwasher. "It's probably better for them to get this out of the way before something bad happens."

"Is Kuro-wan _expecting _something bad to happen?"

He shrugged. "It's when you're at your happiest that the world falls apart around you. We've been lucky that neither of them have gotten themselves killed yet—especially the girl."

"That's not fair," Mokona interrupted, bouncing from the arm of the couch, off the floor, and onto the kitchen counter. "Sakura works really hard to get Syaoran's feathers back."

Kurogane plucked the pork bun from the counter, tossing it to the mage. Fai caught the creature in his hands, then cradled it to his chest like a doll. "Why don't you go find Sakura?" the mage suggested. "She's been so busy with her studies lately that she's hardly gotten time to socialize."

The pork bun bobbed its head and bounced down the hallway. _Well, at least the kids aren't going to be sneaking into each other's rooms tonight, _Kurogane thought, sitting down. He eyed the wizard, waiting. The idiot wouldn't send the meat bun away for no reason. Granted, it could be a _stupid _reason, but Kurogane could admit that the man sometimes had useful things to say. Once in a while. Judging from the somber expression that settled over his face, tonight was one of those times.

"They're good together, you know."

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Yeah, anyone can see that. The girl's probably been wanting to confess her love ever since he lost his memories."

"It makes me wonder how two people form a bond like that. Is it love at first sight, like the storybooks say, or is it some driving force of nature pulling two people from different backgrounds together? Or is love something that builds over time, like a snow drift growing as winter progresses?"

"Why are you asking me? I don't know the first thing about it."

"Yet you didn't interrupt their moment. It's kind of sweet."

He threw the mage a withering glance. "Look, if you sent the pork bun away so you could ramble on about how _romantic_ those two are being—"

"They're happy."

Kurogane paused, then crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I guess. What's your point?"

"It adds another challenge to this journey. An emotional challenge rather than a physical one, but a challenge all the same. Syaoran-kun traveled his world, roaming from place to place without ever having a clear destination. And Sakura-chan . . . As far as I know, she's never been far from her country—at most, she's visited the bordering lands of her kingdom. Yet they're both so much the same. Determined, kindhearted, honest." A shadow flickered across his face at the last word, disappearing before Kurogane could remark on it. "Their love for each other will require a careful balance. They'd both go to extreme lengths to care for the other. That can be a dangerous mindset."

"As long as the boy can keep it in his pants, I don't see much to worry about."

Fai's eyes froze on him for a moment, wide with shock. Then, without warning, he burst into laughter, clutching his stomach. "Worried about that already, Kuro-pon?"

"Kids their age have more hormones than sense. Who knows what could happen?"

"Were _you _running around with other girls at that age?"

He bristled, hands closing into fists. "No," he growled. "_I _spent those years training." Training to fight the man who had murdered his mother. The man who, by killing her, had allowed the demons to burst through Suwa's walls to kill his father. His throat tightened at the memory. For just a moment, he was fourteen years old, a boy trying to follow in his father's footsteps as his home burned to ashes around him. He could taste the smoke in the back of his throat, an acrid stench slithering into his lungs.

"Not much of a romantic?" Fai asked. A hint of mischief tugged at his smile.

"No."

"But you must have someone waiting for you back home," the mage continued, oblivious to the simmering anger in Kurogane's voice. "Someone keeping your bed warm while you're away."

"I don't have anyone waiting for me."

Slowly, the amusement drained out of the wizard's face. "No one?"

He shrugged. "Princess Tomoyo sent me away. Who else would I go back to?"

"Don't you . . . have a family? Or friends?"

He thought briefly of the warriors he had trained with in Nihon. Souma could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but she'd always had his back when it had counted. There had been others—as much as Tomoyo's sister Kendappa had irritated him, he supposed he could call her a friend. Still, he felt no eagerness at the thought of seeing them, only a deep longing for the castle that had been his home longer than Suwa had. "No," he said quietly. "I don't have any family left, and there's no one else waiting for me."

"I'm . . . sorry to hear that," Fai said after a moment.

"Doesn't matter." He glanced up to meet the mage's eyes. "What about you?"

The smile that slid onto the mage's face radiated falseness. "Oh, you know how it goes. I wouldn't have left if I'd been particularly attached to anyone there, and I don't intend to go back, so it's sort of a moot point."

"Then who are you running from?"

His smile froze, becoming brittle. The air between them seemed to cool ten degrees. After nearly a minute, Kurogane broke the silence. "You're always keeping secrets. You have to realize that nothing stays buried forever."

"That's not entirely true. You just have to bury it deep enough."

Frustrated, Kurogane glared at the man. "One day, I'll figure out what it is you've been hiding since we met in the witch's shop. Don't think you can keep secrets that affect all of us."

"My secrets have nothing to do with anyone except myself."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Kuro-daddy shouldn't use such harsh language. What if the children overhear?"

He stood, nails biting into his palm as his hands curled into fists. He strode over to the mage, grabbing him by the collar before he could duck out of the way. "I know you're lying," he growled. "All this evasion, all this crap about taking care of the kids—you don't really buy into it. You're teaching the princess magic because you know it'll help us move between worlds faster. You're helping her look for the kid's feathers so we can leave each world before whoever's chasing after you can catch up. You're not helping them because you care—you're doing it because you're selfish."

"A bold statement." Fai raised a hand, pressing gently on Kurogane's chest and pulling away. Eyes narrowed, Kurogane released him. "But you're wrong."

"Am I?"

"Yes." Fai's voice sharpened. "You do recall that I sent myself to Yuuko's shop, yes? If I can do that much, what's stopping me from jumping between dimensions whenever I want?"

_And that, _Kurogane thought with a strange sense of glee, _was the wrong thing to say. _A fierce grin spread across his face. "All right. I can buy that. So why stay with us?"

"I want to see Syaoran-kun's memories restored just as much as any of us. I was rather under the impression you wanted the same."

"Because _I _can't travel to different dimensions on my own. But you can. Makes me wonder what made you stay in the beginning, before you had the excuse of caring about the kids. Makes me think you had some ulterior motive for tagging along with us in the first place."

He got the satisfaction of seeing Fai's eyes light up with fury, then harden like ice. Before he could speak, Kurogane forged on. "You know, I can almost believe that you're empty-headed enough to have ignored the possibility of traveling on your own. Almost. But you're too damn smart to be that stupid." He stepped back. "I know you're up to something. I know you've _been _up to something since this whole mess started. So what is it? What are you hiding?"

A smile curved up the magician's lips, so cold that Kurogane could only assume the man wasn't even bothering to cover up the ice in it. "I'm not planning anything, Kuro-chan. And even if I was, why would I tell you about it?"

He huffed in frustration, then turned away. "Fine, then. But if your secret threatens those kids, I won't show any mercy."

Fai flinched. "No. You wouldn't, would you? You did mention that your princess sent you away for being too merciless. I'm sure she'd be disappointed if you decided to wring my neck, but I suppose that's up to you."

He almost turned back, almost brought his fist around and smashed it into the idiot's face. But he managed to rein in his anger, stalking down the hallway and into his room. He flung himself onto the bed, closing his eyes. _Damn him, _he thought, fury festering in the pit of his stomach. _I shouldn't have said anything about Tomoyo. I shouldn't have given that bastard a weapon to use against me. _He grit his teeth, rolling over. Even with what little information he'd been able to drag out of the mage, that last insult stung. _How dare he accuse me of earning Tomoyo's disappointment! That pompous, arrogant bastard!_

He stared at the wall for a long moment, then hissed out a breath. _Should have hit him, _he decided. _He had it coming. Probably planning to stick a knife in our backs as soon as he has the chance, the lying bastard. _

Kurogane forced himself to put the issue aside for a while. The mage hadn't confirmed any intentions to betray them—as much as he lied, accusing him of treason would be tantamount to accusing a known thief of murder without any evidence. For all Kurogane knew, the mage really _was _empty-headed enough to pay for a chance to travel with the rest of them even when he could move freely between worlds on his own.

_No point in worrying about it now, _Kurogane decided. _If he is a traitor, he's probably waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He wouldn't dare attack when he knows I'm still suspicious. I might as well sleep while I can. _

He rolled onto his back and folded his arms over his stomach so one hand rested where his sword should have been. Maybe he'd be able to find a new one in this world. He'd have to check around. Even if the mage had no plans to betray them, he slept better with a weapon on hand.

But for tonight, he'd have to do without. Clearing his mind, he slid into a shallow sleep and dreamed of home.


	37. Dreamwalkers

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A plume of fire _whooshed _through the air, igniting the surrounding treetops. Sakura backed away, smoke making her eyes water as the sound of splintering wood stabbed at her eardrums. _Where am I? _she wondered, staggering away as something moved in her peripheral vision. A few feet away, a black creature writhed behind the curtain of smoke, a mass of chitinous limbs and plated body parts. Half the size of a house, it dominated her field of vision, crushing everything in its path. The way it scuttled across the burning earth made her think it was some kind of giant insect.

It swiveled around, bringing its eight golden eyes to stare at her. Sakura froze, heart jumping to her throat. _Oh, no, _she thought, rushing backward. Her ankle caught on a tree root. She toppled, tailbone slamming into the ground hard enough to sent sparks of pain up her spine.

The monster's opened its maw wide, exposing three rows of gleaming incisors. _I'm going to die, _Sakura thought. Before she could get to her feet, a white light streaked across her field of vision. Her hands flew up to protect her face—which proved to be a wise impulse because, moments later, a torrent of sludge splashed her body.

"Come on, you hairy freak!"

Sakura's eyes snapped open. She knew that voice. "Kurogane-san?"

The ninja stood a fair distance away, brandishing a sword and baring his teeth in a savage smile. The beast that had almost killed her hissed like a reptile, raising one clawed leg to slash at Kurogane. The ninja met the attack head on, his sword scraping against the monster's plated foreleg. As the blade slid up to the joint, Kurogane's arm jerked. Black fluid sprayed across his armor as the monster's limb jerked free, twitching on the ground before melting like butter in a pan.

_That's the sword he gave up at Yuuko's shop, _Sakura realized. _Then . . . I must be in a dream! _

Kurogane spun, fast as a diving falcon. As he rotated, flames poured from the blade of his sword. The monster screeched, the fire spreading across its body as if it had been doused in oil. Moments later, it collapsed, dead.

"Kurogane-san!" Sakura yelled, running through the trees to where the ninja stood.

He took no notice of her, instead turning to a woman with copper skin and black hair. "That makes seven for me. You're losing your edge, Souma."

"I thought Tomoyo told you not to be so bloodthirsty," Souma remarked, eyeing Kurogane. When neither so much as glanced at her, Sakura paused.

"Ah, what's she going to do? It was just a demon."

Souma scrutinized the still-twitching corpse, wrinkling her nose. "Satisfied?"

Kurogane wiped the black sludge off his sword, then sheathed it. "I guess."

"Um, Kurogane-san," Sakura said, raising a hand, unsure whether he even knew she was here. "Where are we?"

"That's all of them, then," Souma said, ignoring Sakura completely. "Shall we go back?"

"Sounds good. I'll lead the way." He strode over to a black horse, pulling himself into the saddle with ease and starting down the grassy path. _Well, it doesn't look like I'll be able to follow, _Sakura thought as they trotted off. _How do I get out of this dream? _

She willed herself to wake up. Whatever she'd walked into, the casual conversation between Kurogane and Souma suggested it had been a common event. As the pair trotted away without her, Sakura decided there probably wasn't anything particularly relevant in this dream, which meant she had no reason to stay.

When she didn't wake up in her bed after a few minutes of focusing, distress bubbled up in her chest._ What if I'm stuck here until the dream ends? _she wondered, turning frantic. _What if another monster comes by and attacks me? What happens when a dreamseer dies in a dream? _

The possibilities terrified her. At best, she'd wake up. At worst . . . _I could die. Or fall into a coma. Or . . . what if I get stuck in between somehow, lost between reality and dreams? _"No," she whispered. "No, no, no . . . Let me out!" she yelled, unsure who she was calling to. "Let me out of here!"

A strange, tugging sensation made her body jerk. She spun wildly, shapes and colors blurring as she twisted. And then, suddenly, she seemed to be floating _above _the dream. _What? _She blinked, refocusing. Beneath her, she could see the demon's smoldering remains, but she could no longer smell the smoke.

Weightless, she twisted in the air. A transparent membrane separated her from the dream, almost like a bubble. _But how did I get out? And where am I now? _She kept twisting, then froze at the sight she beheld. Thousands of similar spheres floated all around her, each containing a different dream. Some of the spheres looked clouded, while others were transparent. Shimmering trails of light bound some dreams together like beads on a string, but many floated alone.

Curious, she drifted toward one of the other spheres, peering through the clear membrane to observe the dream captured within. A pale man in a tan cloak stood over a pool in the ground, his expression mournful. A name floated through her mind, spoken with a voice she didn't recognize. _Subaru . . . _

"You're even more adorable than I expected."

Sakura whirled, her pink and white cloak fluttering. A girl with black hair and skin as pale as the moon smiled at her. Cloaked in elegant robes and capped with a colorful, crown-shaped hair clip, she reminded Sakura of aristocrats she'd met in Clow, except more serene. "Who are you?" Sakura whispered.

"I am Tomoyo, of Nihon."

"Nihon—wait, Tomoyo? As in, Princess Tomoyo? You know Kurogane-san!"

"That's right." Her violet eyes flickered to the orb that held Kurogane's dream, her expression turning tender. "He is my finest—and most troubling—servant. I'd hoped to find his dream while I walked, but I see I've found something far more interesting." Her eyes returned to Sakura's figure. "Do you come here often?"

"I . . . I'm not sure." It felt familiar to her, and she'd had several dreams lately that fit Yukito's criteria for a true dream, but she's never been to a place where she could see more than one dream at once. "Not here, but . . ."

"You must be very new, then. With practice, you'll be able to better direct your dreams. I could teach you, but I don't know when we might meet again." Tomoyo sighed, propping her head up with her hand. "Which is too bad, really. If we had more time, I could start planning outfits for you to have once we meet in person."

Her eyes widened, and she rushed forward. "Please, teach me," she said. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to get out of here."

Tomoyo smiled, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Have no fear. The dream world poses no danger to you. Your soul will linger here awhile, then return to your body when you wake."

"Return to . . . You mean my soul's not connected to my body anymore?"

"Your soul will always be connected to your body—only death can separate the two permanently. Right now, your body lies as if in sleep. If something wakes you up, you will return to your body, provided there is nothing tethering you to the dream world. Do not worry. If dreamwalking were dangerous, I believe I would have encountered much more trouble." Amusement glittered in her eyes, then returned to the serene look she'd had before. "I suppose I can teach you, as long as we are both here. First, know that not all dreams you encounter in this realm are the dreams of people. Many of these spheres will give you a glimpse into the future." Tomoyo turned, gesturing toward the orb Sakura had been peering through when they'd crossed paths. "Try looking at the shell containing that dream."

"This?" Sakura floated closer to the sphere with the young man peering into the water. "This is the future?"

"One of many. Do you see how the membrane surrounding the dream looks a bit cloudy?"

Sakura nodded.

"That cloudiness suggests that this future can be changed, although only with great effort and careful choices. The foggier each future appears, the easier it is to change, or the more you have to do to make it happen; I'm not certain which is the case. The clearer the bubble surrounding a future is, the more difficult it is to change that future." Her expression darkened.

"Can they always be changed?" Sakura asked.

Tomoyo paused for a long moment, staring into the dream. "That is . . . a difficult question to answer. Dreamwalkers can see the future, but not always the paths that lead to it. In many cases, the act of trying to change a future instead nudges you closer to it." Tomoyo turned as a smaller sphere drifted past them. Sakura peered through the hazy surface and saw herself and her companions standing on what appeared to be a giant chess board, chained together. _A world we haven't seen yet?_

"If you wish to enter a dream, all you have to do is touch the edge of it. If you wish to leave a dream, all you have to do is ask to be let out. Often, the best way to study an uncertain future is to experience it. You may wish to practice that when you have more time."

"This future," she began, indicating the chess world. "Could it still happen? It seems cloudy."

"It could happen, yes. But this feels more like an echo of another dream. One that could have happened—could still happen, even—but has started to die because of the path you have taken." Tomoyo looked up suddenly, seeming alarmed. Sakura tensed. "I must go," Tomoyo said, relaxing a bit. "Time flows differently in my world—my attendants are trying to wake me." Her soft smile widened. "I will see you again—that much is quite clear."

"Oh, but . . . Will you teach me more when we do meet?"

"Of course." Tomoyo's eyes twinkled. "But I think you'll learn a lot on your own just by wandering." Her figure started to fade, as if dissolving. "Until then, farewell!"

Her body evaporated like mist, leaving Sakura behind amidst a sea of dreams. She floated in place a moment longer, hoping Tomoyo would reappear. When nothing happened after a few seconds, she sighed, studying the spheres around her. She drifted between several, catching snippets of each dream. In one, a man with a ponytail adjusted his goggles, smiling at a girl with mint green hair. In another, Yuzuriha from Ookami-kuni sat with others from her tribe, smiling and laughing.

The next dream showcased a man with a cloudy glass eye. He looked up as she passed, giving her a knowing smile, and disappeared moments later, swallowed up by the dimensional sea. Sakura stared at the dream he'd abandoned for a moment. It looked a bit like the country they were in now, except the skyscrapers rose like metal skeletons above the streets, some tipping toward one side, as if on the edge of collapse. Bits of rock shot up from the ground, their tops looking eroded. If people lived there, they'd hidden themselves well. _A broken world, _Sakura thought, moving on. _I wonder if we'll visit that place someday. _

She paused as she reached the next sphere. In this dream, she and Syaoran twirled on a tiled floor. Her dream-self wore a gauzy, bell-shaped dress with ribbons trailing down her back. Syaoran wore a crisp, black ensemble with a bow-tie. As she watched, he rested an uncertain hand on dream-Sakura's waist, leaning forward to whisper something in her ear.

_Why do I look so somber? _she wondered, studying her dream-self's face. _I should be _happy_. Syaoran and I are perfect for each other. _She frowned, floating closer to the sphere. Her hands hovered just above the surface of the bubble, and she felt a tingling in her fingertips. A resonance. _Is this a true dream, then? _

She hesitated. Would entering a true dream allow her to change it somehow? This sphere looked so clear, its outer surface transparent. A nearly certain future, according to Tomoyo. _Would I simply become part of that dream? _Sakura wondered. _An observer, unable to change anything? _

Bracing herself, she pressed her hands to the sphere. A chilling sensation through her chest, and a moment later, she found herself in Syaoran's arms, twirling to the music of the quiet string section in the corner.

"Kliss says that House Eldrine suddenly acquired a lot of political power a few months ago," Syaoran said as they twirled. "They took advantage of the assassinations and placed themselves close to some powerful allies."

Sakura met his eyes, words forming on her lips without a conscious thought. "You think they might have been behind the assassinations?"

Syaoran nodded, looking troubled. _What am I talking about? _Sakura wondered, lifting one hand and placing it on his shoulder. The movement occurred without any input from her mind, and when she tried to lift her other hand, it wouldn't obey her, remaining glued to Syaoran's side. _So I can't alter a future through a dream. I just have to play along. _

"Do you think a feather could grant magic to someone who doesn't have it?" Syaoran asked, glancing around.

"It could. Or it could strengthen someone who's already a magic-user, like what happened in Koryo."

"Possible," Syaoran said, lifting his head. "We could be facing a very dangerous enemy."

The vision stopped abruptly, and Sakura found herself once again floating among dozens of little spheres. The dream she'd been ejected out of shriveled up, the shell blackening as it vanished. _Did the dreamer wake up? _she wondered. _Or did the vision just end?_

Her body lurched, pulled back by a powerful force. Sakura spun, catching glimpses of dozens of nearby dreams. The force kept pulling, however, always dragging her backward, no matter which way she turned. The shimmering dreamscape around her darkened, like glass stained by smoke.

She woke in her bed in Avantine, clutching Mokona to her chest.


	38. Hoverboards

_Author's Notes: _

_Sorry about the long time between updates. I got a job at a coffee shop, and my original fiction has been demanding quite a bit of my time lately. I'm hoping to finish that story within the next month or so (fingers crossed!).__ But for now, enjoy this chapter._

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirty-Eight<p>

"Kurogane-san, can I ask you something?"

Kurogane glanced up from the hoverboard. They'd been tinkering with the thing all morning, their progress steady but slow. They'd finally gotten it assembled—four days shy of the big race—and according to the instruction booklet, the board would draw energy from ambient light until they shut it down or disassembled it. He had no idea how the technology functioned—or if it could even be considered technology, when magic seemed like a more plausible explanation—but judging by the way the device floated ten centimeters off the ground, it worked.

"I guess," Kurogane said, running his fingertips across the glowing patterns of the board.

"I wanted to ask about . . . You know about what I said to Sakura last night, don't you?"

"Yeah." _Ah, crap. _

"It's just . . . I'm a commoner, and she's a princess, and . . . I think I've done something wrong."

_No shit. _Kurogane raised an eyebrow. "You're going to have to be more specific if you want me to do anything about it."

"I think I've overstepped a line. I mean, we both did, but I should know better than to . . ." The boy leaned forward, misery swimming in his eyes. "I didn't think about what I was doing. Sakura-hime . . . _Sakura,_" he corrected himself. "She's done so much for me, and I know she cares about me, but I don't know why."

"And?"

"And . . ." The kid's shoulders sank. "Was I wrong to tell her I loved her? Was it wrong for me to kiss her?"

"Yeah, probably," Kurogane said, sighing when the boy flinched and curled in on himself. "Look, I don't know anything about your world's social classes, so I'm probably not the best person to ask about this stuff, but you must have realized how much your love life could complicate this journey."

Syaoran blinked, as if he hadn't even considered that. "I didn't . . . I'm not sure what you mean."

"The princess thinks you love her. Maybe you do, or maybe you're thinking with your dick." He paused as the kid's face colored. "Either way, you've got to realize it's not going to work out. I mean, you're . . . what, fourteen? Fifteen?"

"I don't know. Close to that, I think. I don't have enough memories to be sure."

"My point is, you're too young to know what you want, and this crush isn't going to last. Even if it _does _work out, it's not going to stay gooey and romantic forever, and this journey's getting more dangerous with every world we land in. So keep it in your pants and try not to screw things up too much. And don't come to me for romance advice. You'd be better off asking the mage about this kind of crap."

The kid's shoulders slumped. "Okay."

Kurogane stood, picking up the hoverboard. "Get the princess. The race is in four days, and we're going to need a hell of a lot of practice to even stand a chance at winning that feather."

The boy's eyes hardened, the misery disappearing behind a layer of forced calm. "Right."

Kurogane nodded his approval, and the kid ran off to fetch the princess. She emerged from her room a moment later, a sack of coins floating in front of her. When she reached the living room, she let them drop into her hands. Surprise lit up her eyes. "You finished it!"

He held up the hoverboard as evidence. "Yeah. And it took a hell of a lot of work to build, so if you crash and break it, I'm going to punch your lights out."

The princess only smiled as she took the board from his hands. "Let's get going then."

* * *

><p>In the center of the city, a massive park overflowed with people on hoverboards and other floating machines. A few trees rose along the edges of the park, and without them, the park would have been nothing more than a bunch of cement valleys and metal obstacles. "I've never seen any place so . . . industrial," Sakura said, her eyebrows pulling together.<p>

"According to the hologram, it's a hover park," Syaoran said, studying the three-dimensional map produced by his ID card. "It looks like this is a good place to practice, in any case." He nodded toward a group of teenagers racing through a cement cylinder on hoverboards.

Sakura frowned. _They're so fast, _she thought. _And we've only been here for a few minutes. There must be people who can fly even faster in the competition. _

"You want to take the first round, princess?" Kurogane asked, handing her a pink and orange helmet.

She nodded, setting the helmet on her head and fastening the straps. She'd changed into a shirt and trousers, since her dress would have inhibited her movements, but she still felt awkward as she set the board down and stepped onto it. Her weight made it dip a few centimeters, but it rose again, like a piece of driftwood bobbing on water. "Did those instructions say anything about how to use this?"

"No," Syaoran said, looking down. She glanced back at him, surprised by his terse reply, but rather than looking at her, he stared at his shoe, the corners of his lips turned down. She was about to ask him what was wrong when Kurogane spoke.

"Looks like you just have to lean in the direction you want to go." He tilted his head toward a girl darting in front of them.

Sakura leaned forward, stomach tightening when the hoverboard lurched under her feet. For the first two meters, it remained steady. But then she started accelerating. "Whoa!" She leaned back, arms spreading as she tried to recapture her balance. The board strayed a few inches to the left, making her list to the side. Before a scream could escape her lips, she hit the concrete. "Oh!"

"Are you all right?" Syaoran asked, hurrying over to her. Sakura glanced at the hoverboard. It had continued in its path for a few meters, one edge scraping the ground, but it had eventually righted itself and come to rest, upside-down, next to a wall.

"I'm fine." She dusted herself off, making a concerted effort to appear casual. More than anything, she wanted to be competent so Syaoran wouldn't have to take risks in the competition to compensate for her lack of skill. _We have four days to prepare, _she thought. _If I don't learn fast, we don't stand a chance at all. _

"You're bleeding." Distress crept into Syaoran's voice as he touched her elbow. Sakura glanced down to see a trickle of blood flowing from the scrape.

She forced a smile. "It's nothing to worry about." Holding her cheerful expression in place, she walked over to the hoverboard. "I'll try again."

This time, she maintained her balance long enough to reach one of the obstacles. A curved wall rose from the middle of the ground, like an ocean wave. She leaned to the side, concentrating on keeping her balance, then coasted toward the inner curve of the wall. Her hoverboard adapted to the uneven terrain by tilting to the side. Before she could correct the tilt, gravity took hold of her, and she tumbled down the wall.

"Need a little help there?" someone asked. She glanced up to see a man wearing goggles. His hair was the indistinct shade between blond and brown, and when he pulled his goggles up over his forehead, she saw that his eyes were gray.

"Um . . . Maybe a little." She stood, face reddening. "I've never used a hoverboard before today."

"Yeah, I figured as much. I'm Shougo. And you are . . . ?"

"Sakura."

He nodded, tilting his head back to look at the wall. "You need to build more speed if you want to keep yourself from falling when your board banks. Remember, hoverboards work by sensing the terrain below and the shifts in weight above. If you list too far to the side, it's safer to twist midair than try to right yourself by leaning the other way." He crossed his arms, then sighed, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. He didn't light it, but held it between his lips as he surveyed the course.

"How long have you been doing this? Hoverboarding, I mean."

"Since I was eight." Shougo shrugged. "I've been boarding competitively since I turned fourteen. Those your friends?" He glanced at Kurogane and Syaoran as they approached. Kurogane looked bored, though there was an alertness in his eyes that made Sakura wonder if his casual behavior was just a front. Syaoran looked wary. _That's strange, _she thought.

"Yes. This is Syaoran, and this is Kurogane."

"'Sup," Shougo said, lifting his hand in a halfhearted wave. Sakura blinked, puzzled by his strange greeting. If it was slang, she didn't think there was an equivalent phrase in her language.

"Who are you?" Syaoran asked, a thread of ice weaving through his voice.

"This is Shougo-san," she told him, smiling. "He was giving me some hoverboarding tips."

"That's nice of him." Syaoran scrutinized him as he might scrutinize a defaced artifact.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. "You seem . . ." _Hostile. _

He shrugged. Beside him, Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Knew this would turn into a problem," he grumbled. _What does he mean by that? _Sakura wondered.

"Hey, man, it's cool." Shougo lifted his hands in a peacemaking gesture. "I wasn't trying to sweet-talk your girl or anything. Believe me, my hands are full with the one I've got."

Syaoran's shoulders relaxed. Sakura frowned, studying him. _Was he jealous? Because of me? _The thought sent twin pangs of pride and worry through her chest. She didn't want him to feel insecure or envious—her heart belonged to him, even if he couldn't remember what they'd shared—but it flattered her to think that he cared enough to be jealous.

"Anyway," Shougo said, turning to her, "you should probably take it easy for the first couple weeks. Hoverboarding takes some time to get used to, and if you take it too fast, you'll get yourself killed."

She flinched, saying nothing.

"If you need any advice, I'll be around all this week." Shougo set his glowing green hoverboard on the ground. It immediately started floating several inches above the cement. "Later," he said, stepping on the board. As he shifted his weight, he shot forward, picking up speed rapidly as he headed toward a cluster of obstacles. Sakura watched him go, unsettled. _If that's the kind of skill we're going up against, we'll never win. _

"I think we're going to be here a while," she said, setting the board down and climbing on top of it.

Kurogane sighed. "That's an understatement."


	39. Watching Eyes

Chapter Thirty-Nine

After shredding the skin off her elbows, knees, and forearms, Sakura surrendered the hoverboard to Kurogane. "Run some water over those scrapes," he told her as he set the board down. "It'll ease the sting."

Sakura smiled at him, struggling to ignore the pain. She'd fallen dozens of times in the past hour, sometimes before she'd even gotten the hoverboard to travel more than a few inches. Her longest run had lasted a little over ten seconds, at which point she'd slammed into a wall and scuffed up her forearms. Again. But it was progress.

"There's a drinking fountain near the street," Syaoran said as she brushed the grit from her elbows. "We can get water there."

She nodded, glancing over her shoulder to see Kurogane gliding over the ground, already more proficient with the hoverboard than she was. As she watched, the board tilted, and Kurogane jumped, stumbling across the ground as the board crashed into a pole. Unlike her, he found his footing before his momentum brought him crashing to the ground.

She went to the drinking fountain and cupped her hands under the stream while Syaoran held the button down. She'd seen machines like this all over Avantine, and they appeared to be some of the simplest devices in the city. Wetting her hands, she scrubbed the debris from her scrapes.

It surprised her to realize that, although her scrapes burned when she touched them, she no longer flinched at the pain. _I must be getting tougher, _she thought, splashing some water on her face. In Clow, even she wouldn't have dared to waste water like this, but Avantine had water in abundance. She remembered Syaoran mentioning something about aquifers beneath the city. Clow hadn't had any such thing; they'd drawn water from a river a couple miles outside the capital city.

"Do you need any bandages?" Syaoran asked. "I think there's a medical station somewhere around here."

She patted his shoulder. "No, that's okay. I'm going to be getting back on the hoverboard once you've had a turn. The ground will tear the bandages apart next time I fall."

"Are you sure?" Syaoran frowned. "I remember _someone _telling me that I shouldn't hide my pain. When I was young, I mean. I don't quite remember who." His eyebrows pulled together.

_He means me, _she realized, feeling as if someone had shoved hot needles into her wounds. She remembered scolding him for avoiding medical care—she'd done it so often that it had almost become a joke between them. To hear him giving her the same advice now . . .

_I can't think about that anymore, _she told herself. _I have something I need to do. Thinking about what I've lost won't help. _She steeled her heart. "Thank you. But I'm all right, really."

"Well . . . okay." Syaoran gave her tentative smile, wandering away from the drinking fountain even as his eyes lingered on her face. She followed, walking by his side until they reached a small metal bench at the edge of the park. _We should be able to see most of the park from here, _she thought, sitting up. _Maybe we can pick up a few things about how hoverboarding works. _She looked around, studying the other boarders. Some looked nearly as inexperienced as she was, falling off their hoverboards and nursing wounds, but others traveled in packs, shooting across the park and over obstacles as if they could make themselves as light as air.

Of all of them, Shougo and his group moved with the greatest finesse, turning sharply and swerving around obstacles. Behind Shougo flew a lanky girl with long, mint-green hair, and behind her, a man with black hair tied back in a ponytail followed, wearing round spectacles similar to the ones Sakura had seen on Fujitaka. Shougo called the girl Primera and the man Kyle, and their names sounded exotic to her ears. Both seemed to defer to him, following his lead without complaint. They worked so well together that Sakura began to wonder if they were already a team. _They must be entering the big race, _she thought. _Shougo-san said he boarded competitively. It makes sense that he would enter this tournament, too. _

A warm pressure on her fingers pulled her from her reverie. She glanced over to see Syaoran looking at her, his shoulders curled inward. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's just . . ." He trailed off, then shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Tell me."

He fidgeted, pulling his hand away and letting it rest on his knee. "I like you. A lot. But . . ."

Her heart started beating faster. "But what?"

"But I think we might have rushed into this. I'm not saying that I don't care about you, but I'm not sure if . . . I'm not sure I know what I'm doing."

Her eyebrows slanted. "What do you mean?"

"You're royalty, and I'm a commoner."

"Syaoran, we've talked about this." _More times than you remember. _

"I know. I know you think that it doesn't matter, but it does. The kingdom of Clow would never accept me as your . . . They would never accept that a commoner could associate with the princess in such a way. I'm not saying that we can't try, but I want to be realistic about this."

She frowned. "I'm the princess. If I say something's all right, then it's all right."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Yes, it does." She stood, fighting the tightness in her throat. "No one would criticize us for being together. I would never let that happen. Even Touya wouldn't let that happen." At least, she hoped he wouldn't. But then again, he never _had _liked Syaoran.

Syaoran sighed, but said nothing more. After a minute, Sakura turned her attention back to the boarders racing around the park. Kurogane had already gotten used to the hoverboard, though he maintained a slower speed than most of the others as he steered around obstacles. Sakura studied the way he shifted his weight, how he leaned when he needed to turn. In less than ten minutes, he'd done more than she'd accomplished in hours. _Yet another thing I can't do, _she thought, sighing. _Is there anything I _can _do? _

She turned her attention back to Shougo's group. If she was going to watch someone performing better than she could, she'd at least watch the best. Shougo led his friends straight toward the wave-shaped obstacle where she'd fallen before. As he approached it, he turned sharply, grabbing the side of his board with one hand and crouching. Momentum carried him to the top of the wave, and for a few seconds, he seemed to float in the air above it. Then he twisted his body, angling his hoverboard downward and shooting down the wave.

"I don't trust him," Syaoran said suddenly. Sakura glanced back, puzzled.

"What? Who?"

"Shougo-san. He seems . . . off."

She sighed. "He was just offering me advice. You don't have to be jealous."

Syaoran's fingers flexed. "It's not that. It just seems odd that someone like him would approach someone who's never been hoverboarding before."

"It's not like he singled me out on purpose. I fell right in front of him."

"Even so." He eyed Shougo for a moment, then shook his head. "I guess it doesn't matter. You'll be able to pull it together in time for the race. You always do."

_He has so much faith in me, _she thought. _And I deserve none of it. _ She closed her eyes. For all her practice and effort, she was still pathetically inept at most of the things she tried. Archery, magic, swimming, hoverboarding. She was hardly proficient in the first three, and still failing the last. Logically, she knew it would take time to master anything, but she didn't _have _time. Not when slowing down meant prolonging Syaoran's suffering. He tried to hide it, but she'd seen him slipping into his room wearing the dazed look he got before he passed out, and the gaps in his memory crippled his understanding of many things, despite how quickly he still learned.

As she worried, she became aware of someone watching her.

She sat up, alarm bells ringing in her head. Her eyes darted around, seeking the face of her observer, but before she could isolate anyone in the park, the creeping sensation on the back of her neck vanished. _That was strange. _

"What's wrong?" Syaoran asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing." She glanced over her shoulder, still trying to pinpoint the source of her momentary anxiety, but no one stood behind her. Or, if they had, they'd already slipped away. She shoved her worries aside as Kurogane approached, balancing on the hoverboard with ease. He handed it off to Syaoran without a word, then glanced around once before taking a seat next to her.

"How did it go?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Fine. If you want to keep your balance, stay low to the ground," he added, as if giving a report. "Weight's a factor. Being heavier makes it easier to balance, but being lighter makes you faster." He nodded toward a pair of boarders, one stocky, the other skinny. As if to illustrate his point, the thin one shot forward and flew in a circle around her companion.

_At least my balance problems can be attributed to something other than clumsiness, _she thought, watching Syaoran step on the hoverboard and glide several meters before falling. She winced when he hit the ground.

"If you two can manage to keep yourselves from falling, you might be able to keep up with the competition," Kurogane said, crossing his arms. "You're lighter and faster, and that's probably the only advantage you've got, so use it. Don't take risks if you don't have to, because the second you lose your balance, you'll lose your chance." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "And try not to get too close to any of your opponents. Most of them will be bigger than you. Some of them will try to push you off your board."

"Isn't that against the rules?" she asked.

"It won't matter. Anyone in a competition this big is going to do whatever it takes to win. If that means cheating, they'll cheat." He glanced at her. "You might be young and sheltered, but you've got to stop being so naïve. People will try to take advantage of a girl like you. Don't let them."

Sakura nodded. She'd never heard Kurogane give advice, or at least not so directly. She wondered what had triggered it, wondered if he'd experienced the same unease she'd felt a moment ago when she'd felt the touch of eyes on the back of her neck.

And she wondered, just briefly, if she should be afraid.


	40. Walls

Chapter Forty

They returned to the apartment hours after the sunset. Fai stood up as soon as they entered, looking alarmed. "You've been out all night!"

"We've only got three days until the race," Kurogane said, leaning the hoverboard against the wall. Sakura trailed in after him, nursing the scrapes she'd acquired throughout the day. Fai's eyes fell on her in an instant, widening with something akin to panic.

"What happened?"

Wincing, she touched one of her raw elbows. "Just a few scrapes. It's not as bad as it looks."

The magician stared at her, then flitted into the bathroom to retrieve a first-aid kit. After all the technological marvels she'd seen in Avantine, it surprised her to find that the kit consisted of nothing more than a box with bandages, antiseptic, and painkillers.

Fai fretted over her scrapes for a few minutes, first dabbing antiseptic on her scrapes, then carefully fitting bandages over her damaged skin. Tending her wounds seemed to calm him, and when he spoke again, some of his usual cheer had returned to his voice. "It must have been an eventful day."

"Yes." She brushed her fingertips over the bandage on her knee. "Thank you."

The magician smiled. "You may have obligations to fulfill, but if fulfilling them causes you pain, it's all right to ask for help."

Her answering smile felt hollow. She knew he wasn't talking about hoverboarding anymore—or at least not entirely. Her eyes flickered to Syaoran, who had taken a seat on the couch. He'd bandaged his scrapes at the medical station at the hover park, not waiting to take care of his injuries. Sakura had elected to wait until they returned to the apartment, preferring the comfort of their temporary home to the sterile atmosphere of the medical station, particularly given the unease she'd felt at the hover park. More than once today, she'd felt the touch of watching eyes on the back of her neck. She'd have downplayed it as something awkward but harmless, except that there had been something subtly menacing about her unseen watcher.

Her eyes darted to Kurogane and Syaoran, then back to Fai. "I know it's late, but could we have another magic lesson now?"

Something in her tone must have alarmed him because his eyes froze over like ponds in winter. "Of course."

They headed down the hallway to the room she shared with Mokona. Sakura glanced out into the hall, paranoid, before closing the door and turning to Fai. His smile grew even more strained. "Is something wrong, Sakura-chan?"

"It's . . ." For a moment, she felt ridiculous. What could she tell him? That she'd suspected, but had no proof, that someone had been watching her? _But it's that or nothing. And if it _is _serious, then we could be in danger. _"It's just . . . when I was at the hover park earlier . . . I felt like someone was watching me."

His eyes widened. "Did you see anyone watching you?"

"Well, no, but . . ." Her face warmed. "It was the strangest feeling. I thought for sure there was someone staring at me, but whenever I turned to look, there was no one."

She'd expected him to smile and play it off as her being paranoid. Instead, he turned slightly, facing her more directly as he scrutinized her face. "Interesting," he murmured, more to himself than to her. A dent formed between his eyebrows. "And when you sensed this observer, did you feel threatened?"

The question seemed oddly specific, but also disturbingly close to the sense of malice she'd felt from her unseen watcher. "A little. I mean, not as if they were going to come out and attack me, but . . ." A chill crept along the back of her neck as she remembered her fear. "It felt . . . wrong somehow."

Fai nodded. "I think," he began, pausing, "that you may have sensed someone scrying you."

"Scrying?" Her lips puckered at the unfamiliar word.

"It's a magical process by which a wizard or other magical practitioner examines a person through magical means, usually without that person's knowledge or consent. In Ceres, it was a common form of espionage. But . . ."

"But?"

"But in order for scrying to work, the user must either be relatively close to the target, or they must have some artifact—a trinket or a piece of hair or the like—to attune their magic to that person. In either case, the person being spied upon usually has no idea that they're being watched unless they happen to be very sensitive to foreign magic."

"Oh."

His frown, already so unnatural on his face, deepened. He lowered his voice, crouching a little so they were at eye level. "Can you feel them watching you now?"

She shook her head.

"Okay. The method for keeping unwanted eyes from watching you is very simple, but it requires focus to maintain, meaning that if you're in the middle of a task, you either need to set that aside to block your observer out or you need to remain aware that you are being watched."

A shiver swept down her back. "Am I in danger?"

Fai hesitated. "No. I don't think so. We'll talk about it later, but first, I'm going to teach you this technique." He held up a finger and drew a circle in the air. "The first thing you need to do is imagine a wall around your mind. It doesn't have to be made of stone or brick—it can be as flexible and flimsy as a sheet, if you like—but it needs to be opaque so no one can see through it."

She nodded, visualizing a blank white wall wrapped around her thoughts. "I've got it."

"Good. Now, holding onto that image, call on your magic and let it spread outward, away from your body."

It seemed like an odd command—she'd expected him to ask her to infuse the image with energy, not to let that energy rush out from her like an explosion. But she did as he said, gathering magic inside her heart, then letting it tear free of her all at once.

"Good," Fai said. "Doing that will send a nasty jolt through anyone who's trying to touch your mind."

"What about the wall?"

"The wall is there as a second line of defense. If you still feel like you're being watched after you strike out, that means that your observer has more base power than you do, and you can't effectively stop them. The mental wall will keep you obscured from their scrying for as long as you consciously maintain it."

"But why does it work?" she asked, voice rising. "If the wall isn't infused with magic, how will it keep them from seeing me?"

"That's rather . . . difficult to explain. You see, there are certain . . . symbols, I suppose you could call them, that have an effect on magic-users regardless of whether the person imagining that symbol has any magic themselves. For instance, an opaque wall will block any magician from watching you or peering into your thoughts. As far as I know, the wall will always work, no matter how strong that other magic-user is. There are other symbols . . . visualizations . . . that you can use to combat other forms of magic, but those are generally geared toward more specific situations." He waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. "Those I can teach you later, since you won't likely need them for a while."

_Magic-inhibiting symbols that can be used by non-magical people. _It seemed odd to her; she'd have thought magic could only be blocked by magic. Then again, Fai had a lot more experience with magic than she did, and if he didn't seem overly concerned with teaching her other symbols, they couldn't be that important. "Okay. I'll remember that. But what happens if I'm asleep, or if someone distracts me from imagining a wall?"

"If you're sleeping, chances are that your observer won't be very interested in you—it takes effort to use that type of magic, so wasting it on someone who's not likely to move for a few hours would be needlessly draining. And if you get distracted . . ." He trailed off, forcing a smile. "Try not to stay distracted for long."

"That's all?"

He hesitated. "There are other ways of eradicating someone from your mind. Most of them involve killing."

"That's awful!"

"I thought you'd say something like that. Thus, the more harmless technique." He smiled again, and this time it seemed more genuine. "It's not something you should worry about overmuch. Since you can sense when someone is touching your mind, you'll know when to use the technique. It doesn't even take much practice."

After a moment, she smiled too. "Thank you, Fai-san. I'm glad . . . I so glad there's someone looking out for me. Back in Clow, I always had dozens of people I could rely on without question. It's nice to have someone like that again."

"Soon, you'll be able to rely on yourself. I think that will make you even more confident."

They parted. Sakura supposed she'd gotten the magic lesson she'd asked for, even though that hadn't been her real intention. As soon as the door opened, Mokona bounced in from the hallway, perching herself on the edge of the bed. "Mokona sensed that Sakura was worried, so Mokona wanted to check and see if everything was all right."

She cradled the creature in her hands. "I'm just fine. Thank you for asking." She kicked off her shoes and laid down on the bed. She had no pajamas—they seemed superfluous, especially considering how limited their funds were, so she hadn't bought any for this world. And if someone really _could _watch her while she slept, she wanted to be fully clothed.

Despite her worry, she fell asleep fast, exhausted from the day's work. Mercifully, she did not dream.

* * *

><p>They returned to the hover park the next day to continue practicing. Once again, Sakura took the first turn, keeping Kurogane's advice in mind and crouching to keep her balance. She traveled almost twenty feet before realizing she was about to slam into a metal railing, then jumped off the hoverboard before she could bruise her shins on the low bar.<p>

"I think we should start trying to maneuver through the obstacles," Syaoran said when Sakura handed the board off to Kurogane. "I don't know much about the hoverboard races here, but they must have obstacles just like this park."

The thought of attempting even the least daunting structures in the park made Sakura nauseous, but as she sat down to rest, she watched other boarders weaving between poles and shooting over ramps and valleys in the cement. Shougo and his group arrived an hour after they did, while Syaoran was taking his turn. Shougo waved at her as she met his eyes and walked over to where she sat. "So you decided to come back."

Her eyes widened. "Yes. The three of us—my two friends and I—are going to compete in the relay race three days from now."

"Are you crazy?" asked the girl that had been boarding with Shougo the previous day. "Not to be mean or anything, but you're nowhere near ready to enter that race."

_I know, _Sakura thought.

"Ah, let her compete, Primera," Shougo said.

"You aren't afraid of a little _competition, _are you?" asked Shougo's other teammate. He wore his black hair in a ponytail, and had donned a pair of spectacles.

"Shut up, Kyle. Oh, I'm Primera Idol, and this is Kyle Rondart," she added. "I'm Shougo's girlfriend, and the best thing that ever happened to his hoverboarding team. Kyle's just some guy."

The man named Kyle smiled apologetically. "Primera can come off a little strong, but she's very good at what she does." He stuck his hand out. "Nice to meet you, Miss . . ."

"Sakura." Awkwardly, she mimicked his gesture. He gripped her hand and shook it, holding his black and yellow hoverboard under one arm.

"Miss Sakura." Kyle nodded. "It's always wonderful to see a new face around the hover park, although I think Primera may have a point. The relay race can get intense. It's no place for novices."

"Thank you for your concern, but it's more than just a race for me," Sakura told him. "It's very important to my team that we take home the grand prize. We may not get another chance to find . . . something so valuable."

"An everlasting battery," Kyle said, eyes twinkling with delight as his fingertips drummed against each other. "Think of what that could do—you could power your house forever without ever having to pay any electrical bills."

"Kind of a weird shape, though," Primera said. "I mean, a feather-shaped battery? It's like something out of a comic book."

They were silent for a moment. Sakura suspected they were all thinking of the applications of such a thing. Sakura knew enough of this world to know that batteries gave power to many of the devices people used every day. It made her worry—as Primera had said, a battery that could last forever could be incredibly useful. _But Syaoran needs that feather more than anyone here needs a battery. I can't forget that. _

"You know," Shougo said, "maybe you're right. Maybe you do have what it takes to enter the relay race. But if you want to win, you're going to need some new moves."

"New moves?"

He nodded. "I can show you a few things, if you want."

"Oh, that would be . . ." She trailed off, her eyes flickering to Syaoran as he weaved through a row of poles at walking speed. Yesterday, he'd said he'd sensed something off about Shougo. And after sharing her own concerns with Fai, Sakura couldn't justify ignoring his worry. But . . . _But Shougo's a really nice guy. He doesn't make fun of me for being clumsy. He even thinks I might be good enough for the competition. _She turned back to him. "Yes. I'd like you to teach me about hoverboarding."


	41. Dangerous Stunts

Chapter Forty-One

"Primera, give me your board for a sec," Shougo said, holding out a hand without even looking at his girlfriend. Primera huffed, grumbling as her eyes flickered to Sakura, then thrust her hoverboard into Shougo's arms.

Shougo set the board down. As soon as it neared the ground, it started floating. "See how far off the ground that is?" Shougo asked, pointing at the board. "That height depends on something called your base buoyancy—you can change that using the dial at the front." He tapped a lime-green projection at the tip of the hoverboard, then turned it clockwise. The board dropped a centimeter. "Mostly, you leave that alone, but since it's a relay race, each of your team members will need to readjust this according to their weight. Bigger people need a higher base buoyancy to compensate for their weight. That guy with the red eyes and black hair—"

"His name is Kurogane."

"Right. Kurogane, for instance, will need to turn this dial counterclockwise twice to achieve the correct base buoyancy. So if you started the race, then handed the board off to him, he'd have to readjust it so it wouldn't scrape across the ground as he flies. This making sense so far?"

Sakura nodded. She'd have to tell the others later. _Syaoran won't be happy that I wandered off without saying anything. _She shook off the thought. She was a princess—she could go wherever she wanted.

"When _you _get ready to step on a hoverboard, you want to be about two and a half inches off the ground. Any higher and you'll lose your balance. Any lower, you'll get tripped up by uneven terrain. The hoverboard will compensate for your weight, to an extent, but that's where you need to start."

"Jeez, Shougo, can't you teach her how to do something interesting?" Primera asked. "Like how to twist in midair or fly upside-down?"

He waved her off. "In a minute." Lowering himself to the concrete, he readjusted the dial, lying flat on his stomach as he checked the height. "That should be good. Primera's a little heavier than you, so I had to fine-tune it."

"Did you just call me fat?" Primera demanded, stiffening.

"Nope. Not at all."

"You . . . you . . . Ugh!" She stalked off toward the edge of the park.

"Oh my." Automatically, Sakura started to follow, hoping to calm the girl down.

"Primera's always been a little dramatic," Kyle interjected, tapping Sakura's elbow to stop her. "She'll come back."

Sakura had almost forgotten Kyle was there—with an unremarkable face and voice, few people would notice him. Even his drab taste in clothing made him seem to fade out of existence if Sakura wasn't actively focusing on him.

"I'll let her yell at me later," Shougo said, setting his own hoverboard down and resting on foot in the middle. "For now, just use her board, all right?"

Nodding, Sakura stepped onto Primera's hoverboard. It wobbled under her feet, and she started to move forward without meaning to. Before she could fall, Shougo's hand wrapped around hers. "I've got you. Lean back a little."

She did. The board stopped moving.

"That's how you slow down or stop. Leaning back, I mean. Or, you know, crashing into something. But leaning back is a lot safer. When you do that, you automatically put more weight on your back leg. The pressure sensors on the top of the board sense the change in weight distribution and let you slow down. The bigger the change, the more rapid the deceleration. For moving forward, it's just the opposite. You shift your weight to your front foot, and you accelerate. When the weight distribution is equal, you maintain your speed until you try to change it again. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now, we're going to go forward just a bit. I'll guide you, so don't let go of my hand, all right?"

It occurred to her that she'd never pulled her hand away after he'd steadied her. A blush crept into her cheeks, but apparently, Shougo saw nothing romantic about the gesture at all because his tone remained instructional. "Ease forward and gather speed gradually. Good. Now, to turn, just lean slightly in the direction you want to go. We'll go left."

As they picked up speed, she banked to the left. She almost fell again, but Shougo kept her balanced, and they straightened out, moving faster and faster around the park. "That was good," he told her. "Now level out. We'll maintain this speed for a while."

She shifted some of her weight to her back foot. She must have over-corrected because she started slowing down, but then she leaned forward to match Shougo's pace again, and when she tried to level the board this time, she succeeded. They coasted along, moving fast but no longer speeding up. The wind ran its fingers through her hair, and unbidden, she felt a smile coming to her lips.

"Having fun?"

"Yes! I've never been able to keep my balance this long." She didn't dare turn her head, but her eyes did flicker to him in time to see his answering smile.

"Feeling a little more confident?"

"I am."

"Good. Then it's time for something a little more challenging."

She balked. _What? _"But, but—"

"You aren't afraid of heights, are you?"

"I . . . No, but . . ."

"Great. Now lean _way _back, like you're on a roller coaster as it climbs that first hill."

_What's a roller coaster? _she wondered, leaning back. Rather than decelerating this time, she went _up_. Her heart jumped to her throat, hammering beneath her skin. Shougo followed easily, much more accustomed to hoverboarding than she was. _How am I doing this? _she wondered as her board went vertical. Somehow, she didn't fall. In fact, her feet felt glued to the board. "How is this possible?" she yelled, voice rising in panic.

"What do you mean?" Shougo shouted over the wind.

"How can we be going straight up like this? What about gravity?"

"Don't worry about it. Hoverboards have built-in safety features for this kind of stuff. You wouldn't be able to fall from this height even if you tried."

"Then how do we get down?"

He grinned. "I'll show you, but you have to let go of my hand first."

_What? _"I don't think I can do that!"

"Just trust me." He tugged his arm away. Reluctantly, Sakura let go, her hand feeling terribly cold as Shougo accelerated. "Watch the way my legs twist and do what I do, okay?" he yelled, pulling ahead.

Her voice trembled. "O-okay."

He shot straight up, grinning widely. Once he was several meters above her, he brought his back leg forward, whipping his board around so the point suddenly angled downward. His body twisted with the board, and for a moment, he hung in the air, untouched by gravity.

"Like that," he said as she passed him. She squeaked. _How am I supposed to do that? _Her stomach pitched, anxiety a churning storm inside her. But she didn't have any way to descend except for what he'd taught her, and she couldn't keep going up forever. Dread tangled around her chest, constricting her lungs until she couldn't breathe. Tears sprang to her eyes. _I can't get down. I can't get _down_! _

She looked over her shoulder. The hover-park looked like a tiny square surrounded by the buildings of the city. As small as the bull's-eye on the practice targets Fai had made for her archery lessons. And getting smaller with every inch she flew upward. _I __can't keep going up forever. I have to turn around, or I'll keep going up until the air gets too thin to breathe._

Inhaling through her teeth, she brought her back leg forward. The board stuck to the soles of her shoes, but allowed her enough freedom of movement to keep herself from spiraling out of control. The rest of her body followed the turn, her rapid ascent ceasing.

For a moment, the whole world stood still. And then she rocketed toward the ground, picking up speed twice as fast as she had in the ascent. Wind raked her skin, digging into her cheeks, stinging her eyes. The skyscrapers around her dissolved into formless gray blurs, and the park below rapidly expanded, growing larger and larger until she could see the individual people as dots, then as dots with different features. Instinct had her trying to brake, but rather than slowing right away, her vertical descent evened out, like a steep hill curving until the land flattened at the base. Only then did she start to slow, skimming mere centimeters off the ground.

Her pulse roared in her ears as she stopped, adrenaline making her knees wobble as she stepped off Primera's hoverboard. Dizzy, she sat down hard on the concrete, staring blankly ahead.

"Sakura! Sakura!" a voice called. Mind scrambled by the adrenaline rush, it took her a moment to recognize the voice as Syaoran's. She turned her head.

"Yes?"

"Sakura! Are you all right?" he asked, running over to her.

"I _think_ so." She blinked. "Why?"

"You . . ." He sucked in a deep breath. "You just _plummeted_ toward the ground!" His breathing grew labored. "You could have _died_! What were you thinking?"

She felt a stab of irritation. "I wasn't going to die. There are . . . safety features to keep that from happening." Shougo had said something like that, anyway._  
><em>

Kurogane, eyes wide, the muscles in his neck standing up, hurried over from the same direction as Syaoran had come. Before he could arrive, Syaoran knelt and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I thought . . . I didn't think you'd be able to stop. You can't glide more than a few feet without falling, you . . . How could you do something like that?"

She returned the embrace, not because she was afraid or horrified by the danger, but because he was warm and she loved him. "It's all right. I had Shougo-san to make sure everything was okay."

"But—But you could have still died. And if he was supposed to be keeping you safe, _where is he_?"

Her eyelids fluttered. It hadn't really occurred to her that Shougo should have been there, but she supposed he should've shown up to retrieve Primera's hoverboard, if nothing else. _That's strange. Where did he go? _Distracted, she glanced around, searching for him.

"Please, _please _don't do anything like that again," Syaoran begged. "I know you want to help me recover my memories, but it's not worth dying over."

"Of all the stupid things to do," Kurogane grumbled as he reached them. "_That _had to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Do you realize what would've happened if you hadn't been able to pull out of that dive?"

Sakura winced at the censure in his tone. _I even upset Kurogane. _"I didn't realize it would be so dangerous." _I didn't think they'd be watching me close enough to see it. _

She felt a tingle on the back of her neck at the thought of someone watching her. She wasn't sure if it was the scrying Fai had talked about or just her own mind making her think she was being watched. Either way, she built up a wall around her thoughts and pushed outward with her magic, as Fai had taught her. The prickly feeling subsided.

"Kid, take the princess back to the apartment," Kurogane said abruptly.

"What? Why?" Sakura asked, leaning forward. "We still have hours of daylight. We should practice."

"If you're going to be this reckless, you shouldn't be doing this," the ninja snapped. "Get out of here."

Childish anger bubbled up in her chest. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"You endangered your life with that stunt. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, you won't be able to do it if you're dead. And obviously you're not clearheaded enough to realize that you weren't ready to try something like that."

A swell of shame derailed her anger, despite her attempts to hold on to it. She looked down. "I have to return this hoverboard to Shougo-san."

Kurogane snatched the board from her hands. "_I'll _do it. Now get out of here before I decide to pull us all out of the race."

Eyes stinging, she started walking toward their apartment building. She didn't see Shougo or Primera on the way out, but she did see Kyle. He smiled sheepishly at her, then grimaced at her expression. When she felt Syaoran's fingers lace with hers, she looked away. _Why is it that when I do something right, everyone yells at me for putting myself in danger? _

"Sakura . . ." Syaoran began, an apology in his voice.

"It wasn't that dangerous."

A pause. "I'm sorry. But I disagree."

Pain lanced through her chest. "I finally did something well, and no one will acknowledge it."

"You scared us, that's all. We wouldn't have been upset if you'd tried something safer."

She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head. "It's just not fair."

His eyebrows pulled together as if he was trying to find the words to comfort her, but after a moment, he just sighed and said, "I'm sorry."


	42. Disguises

_Author's Notes:_

_Hey everyone, sorry about the wait. I have many excuses, none of them really worth talking about. I'll also apologize for the shortness of this chapter. It was actually getting too long, and so I had to break it apart and move the next part of it to the next chapter (which means about a third of the next chapter is already written, which is nice for all of you, as it probably means I'll update sooner). But now that we've established how bad I am at updating, here's a recap of what's happened so far:_

_After Syaoran lost his memories in the Kingdom of Clow, Sakura vowed to see them returned to him, no matter what the price. It has been a few weeks since she went to Yuuko's shop, wishing for a method to move between worlds, and ever since, she has been traveling with Syaoran, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona. Though the members of the group have started forming friendships, it is clear that tensions still run thick between them. _

_After arriving in the technologically advanced world of Avantine, the group enters a hoverboarding race for which the grand prize is one of Syaoran's feathers. However, Sakura struggles with becoming proficient with hoverboarding, just as she struggles with her magic lessons and other pursuits that may help her in her quest. With little time remaining before the big race, she is desperate to learn whatever she can to give herself and her companions a shot at victory. Making the journey more complicated, Sakura recently declared her love for Syaoran, and they have united as a couple against custom and reason. A few days later, during hoverboard practice, Sakura performs a dangerous aerial maneuver on her hoverboard under the supervision of Shougo Asagi, champion hoverboard racer and one of her opponents in the upcoming race. Infuriated by Sakura's reckless behavior, Kurogane sends her back to their current living quarters, with Syaoran escorting her._

* * *

><p>Chapter Forty-Two<p>

Kurogane surveyed the crowd, eyebrows slanted, hands clamped around the hoverboard he'd snatched out of the princess's hands five minutes ago. _Should have known she'd do something reckless, _he thought, irritated. _The girl doesn't know when to quit._

His eyes fell on the figure he'd been searching for, and only Tomoyo's curse kept him from lashing out when he recognized the sandy-haired bastard who'd nearly led the princess to her grave.

He supposed he could still break a few bones, even if he couldn't kill the man. But in this world, that would probably get him into trouble.

The man—Shougo, the princess had called him—jumped as their eyes met across the sea of people, and his friends, attached to his side as if bound by an invisible leash, suddenly disappeared among the other boarders. Radiating tension, Kurogane walked forward, the crowd parting around him. To Shougo's credit, he didn't flee or back away as Kurogane approached, only lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Look, man, I wasn't trying to—"

"Shut up," Kurogane growled. Shougo paled, mouth snapping shut, and Kurogane crossed the last few feet between them, until their faces were only inches away. "Listen closely," he said, voice low, precise. "You will _not _come within a hundred feet of that girl again, and you will _not _teach her anything else that could get her killed. If you do, I will find the closest sharp object and use it to skin you alive. Got it?"

Face pallid, Shougo nodded.

"Good." Kurogane shoved the hoverboard against Shougo's chest. "Now take this and get the hell out of here before I break your legs."

The man didn't even wait for him to finish speaking. As soon as his fingers closed around the edges of the hoverboard, he turned to flee.

A rush of satisfaction pulsed through Kurogane's veins. He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to scare the shit out of someone.

* * *

><p>Fai wasn't at the apartment when they returned. Sakura wondered briefly where he'd disappeared off to, then shook her head. What did it matter where Fai had gone? He hadn't expected them back until late at night, so he'd probably left the apartment to explore the area.<p>

Syaoran trailed in after her, looking uncertain about what to do. Kurogane had told him to bring her back here, but he hadn't given any instructions on whether Syaoran should stay to make sure she didn't do anything risky. Frustration twisted through her at the thought. Her flight on the hoverboard hadn't been _that _dangerous. Perhaps a _little_ unsafe, but she hadn't been hurt. They'd overreacted.

"Sakura . . ." Syaoran began, a request in his voice.

"What is it?"

Her tone must have been even colder than she'd intended, judging by his wince. "Will you be all right here if I go back?"

Her eyes began to sting. "Don't worry. I'm sure I won't be able to find anything _dangerous _to do around the apartment." It took only an instant for her to regret the words, but she clamped her mouth shut before an apology could spring to her lips. She wouldn't apologize for this. She'd started this journey in order to recover Syaoran's memories. Without taking risks, she'd never be able to retrieve them.

"Please . . . Please don't do anything rash," Syaoran said, shoulders tightening. "I don't know what I would do if something were to happen to you."

She bit her lip, _hard_, trying to hold back her instinctive desire to wrap her arms around him. _He may not remember me, but he _does _care about me. He may even love me. _"Nothing will happen," she said tersely. "You should go back to the hoverpark."

Syaoran nodded, heading for the door. Only once did he pause, glancing over his shoulder, eyebrows pulling together in worry. Then he left, the door sliding closed behind him.

Sakura went to her room, working through her mixed feelings. She understood why the others had been worried about her—really, she did—but did they have to treat her like she was incompetent? _She _wasn't the one who'd lost all her memories. _She _had spent the past few weeks practicing her magic, and the days before that learning the basics of archery. Why did everyone have to treat her like a damsel in distress?

_Maybe if I can prove to them that I can take care of myself, they won't treat me like a baby. _An idea sparked in her mind just then. True, she couldn't go back to the hoverpark to continue practicing, but maybe she could find another hoverboard and practice elsewhere. _Shougo said he competed regularly. Maybe he has an extra board I could borrow. _

Grinning, she started to plan it out in her mind. To get to Shougo, she'd have to return to the hoverpark, which meant she'd risk running into Syaoran and Kurogane again. But maybe . . . _Maybe if I disguise myself and don't get too close, they won't even notice me, _she thought. Another thought intruded, tromping over her plan. _But they'll know to keep an eye on Shougo, so I won't be able to go straight to him. _She frowned. There had to be a way. Shougo had friends, teammates. _I could talk to Kyle or Primera. One of them might lend me a hoverboard, and even if they don't, at least they could talk to Shougo. _He'll _lend me a hoverboard for sure._

As the idea took shape, she began to feel more confident. For her disguise, she tied her hair up in pigtails and switched the clothes she'd worn to the park with an assortment of ill-matched garments that she'd gathered in this world. To cover her eyes, she grabbed a pair of goggles and pulled them over her face. If anyone she knew glanced in her direction, they would see a stranger with poor taste in fashion and a childish hairstyle, not her. Hopefully.

She slipped out of the apartment, tucking her card key in the pocket of her neon orange pants, then strolled to the elevator. When Fai emerged from the box with a pair of wine bottles in hand, she jumped half a foot in the air.

"Hello, Sakura-chan," he said, beaming at her. "You're back early. Is everything all right?"

"Fine!" Her voice came out as a squeak, and she quickly lowered it. "I forgot something, so I had to come back, but now I'm going to go back to the hoverpark. See you later." Before the magician could respond, she dashed into the elevator and hit the button to make the doors close. _I can't believe he recognized me so easily! _She jabbed the button for the first floor, relieved when the elevator made it down to the lobby without stopping._  
><em>

As she stepped out of the elevator, she altered her gait, bouncing with every step. Perhaps if she altered the way she moved, her companions would be less likely to see through her disguise. Her childish gait felt awkward—it had been a long time since she'd walked with a bounce in her step—but she settled into it after a few minutes, swinging her arms a bit to look even more carefree as she neared the hoverpark.

As she crossed the street, she scanned the area for her friends. Syaoran and Kurogane had migrated to the opposite corner of the park, away from the more challenging obstacles. Neither of them noticed her standing on the sidewalk, and she turned her attention away from them, searching for Shougo's group. Unsurprisingly, they darted through the twisting cement tunnels at speeds that would have set her heart racing. Tentatively, she approached, taking care to put as many obstacles between herself and her friends as possible while she crossed the park. If they saw her, they'd send her back, and this time, they'd probably ask Fai to babysit her so she wouldn't try anything risky again.

As Shougo, Primera, and Kyle emerged from the end of an S-shaped tunnel, Sakura waved at them. "Shougo-san!"

He glanced over his shoulder, leaning back to break, then stared at her, puzzlement making his eyebrows pull together. After a moment, he leaned forward, eyes narrowing as if trying to match up what he saw with what he'd _expected _to see.

"Oh, look, it's the little princess," Primera muttered, stepping off her board. "Didn't your friends tell you to buzz off after that last stunt?"

Sakura winced. "Yes, but . . . But I have to practice for the competition, and if they won't let me practice with them . . ."

Primera scowled, and Shougo fidgeted uneasily. "Uh, not to disappoint you, but I'm not sure we can help you with that. See, your friend—the big guy with the red eyes—he got a little . . . upset, after you left, and I really don't want to _die_, so . . ."

_Die? _"He threatened you?"

"That's the nice way of putting it," Primera muttered, crossing her arms. "Look, I don't care how badly you need to practice—you're not putting _my _boyfriend in danger to do it."

She looked down, her heart sinking. _I can't believe Kurogane threatened him, _she thought, then realized that she could, in fact, imagine the ninja doing just that. _I should have expected him to say something to Shougo. _

"Primera," Kyle began, his voice placating.

"What?" Primera demanded.

"Maybe it's true that Shougo can't be seen hoverboarding with Miss Sakura, but I don't see why the two of us couldn't help."

"Ha! Like she could win the race even if we did."

Kyle leaned forward, his fingers closing around Primera's forearm. "She deserves a chance, don't you think?"

Something flickered across Primera's face, part annoyance and part guilt. She glanced at Shougo, who pointedly looked in the opposite direction, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Ugh, fine." Primera turned. "Listen up, princess: if you want a crash course on hoverboarding, I'll teach you, but you'd better keep up. Got it?"

Sakura nodded eagerly. "I won't let you down."

"Yeah, whatever. We can't practice here with your friends so close, so I'm going to take you to the Cracks. No whining."

Sakura had no idea what Primera meant by "the Cracks," but she supposed it couldn't be good, given her tone. _But this might be my only chance to learn something before the race. I have to take it. _"I'm ready."

Snapping her fingers, Primera strode toward the edge of the park, holding her hoverboard under her arm. Sakura followed, jogging to keep up, and Kyle flanked her, pausing only to shout a quick goodbye to Shougo, who responded with a halfhearted wave. "Will he be upset that you're leaving him behind?" Sakura asked.

Primera rolled her eyes. "Just keep walking, princess. Just keep walking."


	43. Hoverboarding Lessons

_Author's Notes:_

_Sorry for the long break between updates. I've been busy with work and stuff. But I managed to carve out time to write a couple chapters for this, so I'll be doing weekly updates for a little while (okay, maybe a month's worth of weekly updates. We'll see). And here's a quick recap:_

_After being pressured by Shougo Asagi to perform a dangerous aerial maneuver, Sakura has been sent back to the apartment by her companions. Hurt and unwilling to follow their restrictions, she has slipped out of the apartment and sought the aid of Shougo's teammates, Primera and Kyle, who have agreed to give her a few hoverboarding lessons before the big relay race._

* * *

><p>Chapter Forty-Three<p>

"First thing you've got to learn is how to maneuver in tight quarters," Primera said. "Conventional knowledge states that you should start off in an open area, learning how to bank from side to side, swerve around obstacles, and fly in a circle. We're not going to do this the conventional way." She paused as they reached a street, smashing her fist into the person-shaped button on the pillar holding up the traffic light. Sakura had deduced from earlier forays through the area that the traffic lights somehow controlled the fast-moving squarish pods—cars, someone had called them—that hovered above the road. Thus, it seemed logical that the signals attached to the base of the street lights somehow controlled pedestrian traffic.

Moments later, Primera started forward, cutting in front of a line of stopped cars. Another group of pedestrians approached from the other street corner, chatting loudly as they passed. "How far will we be from the hoverpark?" Sakura asked, worried that they would wander out of Mokona's translation range.

"Couple blocks. That going to be a problem?"

She shrank back from the harshness of Primera's tone, then shook her head. "No."

"You _could _be nice," Kyle suggested.

Primera tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I could also be a mathematician. But I'm not." They reached the sidewalk, and behind them, the cars lurched forward, racing down the street. At the next street, they turned the corner, rather than trying to cross, and Sakura let out a breath. The cars moved recklessly fast—faster than anyone on a hoverboard. She shuddered just thinking about what would happen if one of them collided with her.

After a few more minutes of walking, Sakura began to notice a change in the atmosphere. Clean, shiny buildings gave way to archaic brick structures that seemed to sag in their foundations. Broken windows—some patched with tape, some displaying spiderweb-shaped cracks—showed rooms with stained floors and holes in the walls. The few people moving down these sidewalks did so with their hands stuffed into their pockets and their eyes turned toward the ground, and many of them looked to be wearing clothes with patches sewn on or holes peppering the fabric.

Primera stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to point to something across the street. "That's where we'll be training."

Sakura looked over to see a playground nestled between two dilapidated buildings. A swing-set with one broken swing creaked in the wind, and a glass bottle lay in pieces near the bottom of a plastic slide. "There? Why there?"

"Because," Primera said, rolling her eyes. And her reason must have been obvious, at least to her, because she gave no further explanation. "Come on."

The traffic was lighter here than at the intersection, but they still had to stand at the edge of the curb for a minute before they could cross. Sakura followed Primera, her toes nearly touching the woman's heels, and the moment they reached the other side, another row of cars come shooting down the street behind them.

"The biggest thing in a race like this is turning," Primera said. "And we don't have time for any _beginner _stuff, so we're going straight into hairpin turns. Watch and learn." She laid down her hoverboard and stepped on top, leaning forward. Accelerating toward the playground, she suddenly brought her back leg forward, the board moving with it, and leaned back. Primera's body turned, just as Shougo's had in midair back at the park, when he'd been high in the sky, and she doubled back, the board pivoting as if around an invisible point. She shot toward Sakura, braking with the practiced ease of someone who didn't even have to think about what they were doing. Just before she came to a stop, she hopped half an inch off the hoverboard and grabbed it, landing gracefully on her feet with her board in hand.

"Think you can do that?" she asked.

_No. _Sakura gulped. "Sure." Her doubt spiked as Primera handed her the board, but she laid it down. It teetered slightly before settling under her weight. She picked up speed, heading toward the middle of the playground, and as she neared the broken swing-set, she twisted her body, thrusting her back foot forward as Primera had. The board wobbled at the sudden shift in direction and, belatedly, Sakura leaned back, trying to stabilize her course. To her surprise, the board ceased its wobbling and she shot toward Primera and Kyle, leaning back to slow herself.

"Not bad," Primera remarked. "Do it again."

Sakura repressed a grimace, swooping around and picking up speed, then twisting her body as she had before to turn.

"Again!" Primera shouted. "And faster!"

Once more, she repeated the turn, getting a feel for how her body needed to move to keep the board from shaking. After a few more attempts, she came to a stop in front of Primera, pleased that she managed to do so without toppling forward and landing on the pavement.

"Did I say stop?" the other girl demanded, resting her hands on her hips.

"I'm ready to learn something else."

"No you're not. It takes weeks to get comfortable with a hoverboard, let alone feel at ease doing hairpin turns. Believe me, you're going to need the extra practice when you're doing the same thing a hundred feet off the ground."

Sakura grit her teeth, but climbed back onto the board to repeat the circuit. This time, Primera called out directions with every pass, telling her to twist toward the left or right, to speed up or slow down—although she only gave that last command once, after Sakura nearly slammed into the swing-set as she tried to twist counterclockwise. Sweat clung to her skin, making her feel uncomfortably sticky, but it was nearly half an hour before Primera called her to a halt. "Hardly the best show I've ever seen, but it'll do. At least, you probably won't fall to your death. Maybe."

"What shall we teach her next?" Kyle asked, his eyes sliding over to Primera.

"Vertical ascent and descent. Like what Shougo was trying to teach her."

Sakura's heart jumped a little—this morning's brief training session with Shougo had left a sharp impression in her mind, and the thought of repeating it now that she better understood how utterly terrifying it was going to be didn't fill her with excitement. But if she needed it for the race, she wouldn't balk at the chance to learn it.

Primera grabbed the hoverboard from Sakura's hands and laid it down in front of her. "Pay attention, because I'm only going to show you this once." She stepped onto the board, picking up speed as she shot down the sidewalk, then throwing her weight backward. Rather than falling off the hoverboard, the movement made it angle sharply upward, just as it had when Shougo had demonstrated the same technique at the hoverpark. She shot straight up for several seconds before performing a vertical hairpin turn and darting back toward the ground. Sakura watched in awe as the older girl braked, leveling out. "Your turn."

Sakura gulped. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"You had no problem flying like that alongside my boyfriend," Primera snarled. "And if you're not willing to put yourself in danger, you shouldn't be hoverboarding at all."

"Prim, don't you—" Kyle began.

"Don't call me that."

He sighed. "Primera, don't you think that we should give her a few minutes to get used to the idea? It's hardly something I'd have done as a novice."

Primera's eyebrows slanted, and she rested her hands on her hips, kneading her lip between her teeth. After a few seconds, she let out a gusty sigh. "Yeah, fine. Whatever. Get her some water or something. What do I care?" She stalked over to the playground and sat on one of the swings, glaring at the rocks beneath her feet.

"Have I done something wrong?" Sakura asked, looking to Kyle.

"No, Prim's just like that sometimes. Here." He set his backpack down and fished a plastic bottle from one of the pockets. "Have some water. You must be awfully thirsty."

She reached for the bottle, but hesitated when she looked at its contents. "Why is the water so cloudy?"

"Oh, that? We put this vitamin powder into it. It tastes bitter, but it's good for you."

Sakura hesitated a moment more, then took the bottle and unscrewed the cap. "Thank you."

"No problem."

She sipped at the water, nose wrinkling at the bitter medicinal taste. Kyle sat down next to her, removing one of his shoes and shaking a pebble loose. She stared as it bounced against the ground, the faint noise ringing in her ears. "I feel kind of . . . strange," she said.

"Don't worry. Soon you won't be able to feel anything at all."

She cocked her head to the side, and the whole world tipped with it. "I don't . . ." _Why is my voice slurring?_ "What does that mean?"

"I'm sorry it had to be this way. I wouldn't have done it if I'd had any other choice."

"Done . . . what?" she asked, but the words came so slowly that she barely understood them herself. The edges of her vision fuzzed, going dark. _That's really strange, _she thought. _I feel so . . . tired. _She blinked, struggling to ignore her sudden fatigue, but before she could form a coherent thought, the darkness swallowed her up.


	44. Perilous Situations

Chapter Forty-Four

"It's late," Kurogane said, glancing up at the stars. "Let's head back."

Syaoran nodded, relieved to be done with practice for the day. After escorting Sakura back to the apartment this morning, he'd returned to the hoverpark to practice for the big race. That had been nearly twelve hours ago, and though he could hardly complain, since his feather was the reason they had to practice, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed for the night.

He led the way, since he was more familiar with traffic signals than Kurogane (the man had nearly walked straight into oncoming traffic their first day here, then spent ten minutes grumbling about reckless carriage-drivers). "I think we made a lot of progress today," Syaoran said.

"Yeah."

"And Sakura should be able to catch up tomorrow."

"Sure."

Syaoran winced. _Still sour about this morning, it seems. _"I'm sure she didn't mean to worry us." When he received no response, he fell silent. Ten minutes later, they reached the apartment complex. The night clerk glanced up as they entered, then returned his attention to the magazine he'd been reading, sighing softly.

They stood in silence in the elevator, where Syaoran mused about the implications of having machines like this in Clow. Although Clow had similar lifts, those had to be operated via a system of man-powered pulleys. It would be much easier, Syaoran thought, if those lifts were powered mechanically, particularly in taller buildings. Or, for that matter, in multilevel subterranean structures like the ruins. _The ruins . . . _He frowned. Hadn't Sakura mentioned something about the ruins? He remembered a few snippets of being inside, remembered Fujitaka accompanying him as they studied the ancient wing-shaped structures. His father had considered the ruins architectural marvels, but Syaoran could barely remember anything about them. _No doubt I'm still missing many of those memories, _he thought, stepping out of the elevator. _Maybe I'll get them back after we win __the race. If we win. _

He produced a key card from his pocket and slid it through the sensor at the door. With a click and a hiss, it opened, and they shuffled inside.

"Welcome back," Fai said, grinning. "I was just about to start dinner, but I couldn't get the autochef to work." Frustration flickered across his face before he reverted back to his usual cheer. "Since Sakura-chan got it to work last time, I thought I'd wait for her to get home." He looked at them expectantly.

A thick silence gathered in the room. Slowly, Kurogane stepped forward, his footsteps loud against the tiled entryway. "You mean she's not here?"

Fai's face fell. "I thought she was with you."

Syaoran's heart started to beat faster. "But—but I brought her back here this morning, after . . . I thought . . ." He fell silent under the stifling tension. _She was supposed to stay here, _he thought numbly.

"I ran into her around noon," Fai said. "She said she'd forgotten something, and that she was heading back to the hoverpark. Are you saying she didn't make it there?"

"We haven't seen her all day," Kurogane said, shoulders tensing. Syaoran felt as if he'd swallowed a bucket of ice.

"She could have gotten lost," Fai said carefully, as if he didn't really believe it.

"Are you joking? You can _see _the park from here! How could she get _lost_?"

"It's a confusing city, Kuro-chan. It's entirely possible that she got distracted and then got lost."

"Bullshit. She's reckless, but she's not an idiot."

Fai frowned, crossing his arms. Both the expression and the gesture looked out of place, and if Syaoran hadn't been distracted by the growing pool of fear in his stomach, he'd have paused to reevaluate the way he saw the magician. As it was, he could barely think. _Something's not right._

"Did something happen this morning?" Fai asked.

Kurogane succinctly explained how he'd sent Sakura home after she'd nearly died attempting the technique Shougo had taught her. The entire time, Syaoran shifted his weight between his feet, desperate to start searching for her, but unable to think of a good place to start looking. Fai had a point—it was easy to get lost in this city, and none of them had wandered more than a few blocks from the apartment building. _If she's indoors, we'd have to search every room of every building, and even then, we'd have only a small chance of finding her. We have to think of a more efficient way of searching._

"I see," Fai said as Kurogane finished explaining. "So it would appear that she left intending to avoid running into you two. That . . . complicates things."

"We have to find her." Syaoran struggled to get the words out. "She could be hurt, or lost." _Or worse. _

"_You _are staying right here," Kurogane said. Syaoran's head snapped up, but the ninja went on before he could argue. "Look, even if she's lost, she'll be smart enough to stay in the area. She might find her way back."

"But—"

"Don't argue. The last thing we need is for you to pass out as you're crossing the street."

"I've been feeling a lot stronger lately. I can help."

Fai stepped forward, crouching so they were at eye-level. "Someone needs to stay behind in case she comes back. We wouldn't want Sakura-chan to come home to an empty apartment, do we?"

_Even Fai thinks I'm useless. _His shoulders curled inward slightly. _How could I seem so useless to them? Even if I don't have all my memories back, I should still be able to help. _

"Mage, you got any way you can track her with your magic?"

To everyone's surprise, the magician nodded. "Even without using my own magic, I can still sense her magic signature, provided I can get close enough. We'll still have to check through every building, but we won't have to do thorough sweeps of any of the floors."

"You'll be able to find her?" Syaoran leaned forward, latching on to the flicker of hope Fai had just given him. "You're sure?"

"Most likely, yes. But we should start searching as soon as possible, right Kuro-pon?"

"Well, obviously. You," he said, looking at Syaoran, "stay here in case she comes back. We'll check back here in a couple hours if we haven't found her. The mage and I will go see what we can find."

_They're going to help her. _The thought loosened the coil of fear around his heart. Though he hadn't expected indifference from his companions, he'd worried that they wouldn't be invested enough in Sakura's safety to go out searching. They'd known each other for only a handful of weeks, though with everything that had happened, it felt like much longer. _I've misjudged them both, _Syaoran thought. _They may not care about Sakura as much as I do, but they're still making an effort to help her. They wouldn't leave me here if they didn't think it was important for me to stay. _"Thank you."

Already halfway to the door, the others glanced back at him. Fai smiled. "Don't worry, Syaoran-kun. I'm sure we'll find her in no time at all."

"Right," Kurogane said curtly. Syaoran wasn't sure whether he was mocking Fai's confidence or agreeing with his sentiment. He prayed it was the latter. _They'll find her, _he told himself. _They have to._

* * *

><p>Sakura opened her eyes, head swimming with pain and fatigue, elbows and knees bruised from an impact she didn't remember. A blanket lay beneath her, too thin to ward off the chill of the cement floor. <em>What happened? <em>she wondered dully. It took her a moment to get her eyes to focus. When they did, she saw a brick wall in front of her, marked only with a few scraps of paper that must have come from torn-down posters. She stared at the wall for a minute, eyes adjusting to the dim light of the bare lightbulb above.

_Where am I? _Anxiety surged through her body, sharpening her mind. She remembered practicing her hoverboarding with Primera and Kyle, and then . . . _The water Kyle gave me. He said it was full of vitamins, but it must have had something else in it. _

She rolled, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders to warm herself. She knew such substances existed—toxins which dissolved in water and could make the person who ingested them fall asleep. Or worse. _I'm still alive, though. It must have only been a sedative. _Sitting up, she surveyed her surroundings. On the wall to her right was a metal door. Behind her, a bucket with a removable lid. Apart from that, the blanket, and an air vent embedded in one of the walls, the room was empty.

_Wherever they took me, they didn't leave me much to work with. _She ran her teeth along her lower lip, thinking. As a child, her tutors had taught her what to do if she ever got kidnapped, though she had written off the possibility as unlikely, given how peaceful Clow was. Even so, she remembered one of her tutors telling her that, although there would be people working on securing her safe return, she should try to escape before hunger and exhaustion weakened her to the point where she couldn't fight back. Failing that, she should bargain with her captors, trying to earn their trust so they might give her the tools she needed to get away. _The others may not even know I'm gone yet, _she thought, stomach fluttering with unease. She tried the door, unsurprised to find it locked. _I have to get out of here before Kyle and Primera realize I'm awake. _

Looking over her limited resources, she leaned against the door. The bucket was too light to be any help knocking the door down, and the noise that resulted from trying would alert her captors long before she freed herself. Similarly, the blanket would do her little good. It wasn't sturdy enough to damage anything in the room, and she needed it to keep warm until she could escape. _Nothing I can use._

She turned back to the door. True, her captors had left her with minimal supplies, but that didn't mean she had no way of getting out. Fai's magic lessons hadn't progressed much beyond levitating small objects, but maybe . . . maybe she could use that magic to manipulate the lock somehow. _Yes, that could work. _

Pressing her forehead against the door, she channeled magic to her fingertips. It came easily now, though handling it once it left her body was another matter entirely. _Just like lifting that bag of coins, _she thought, threading her magic into the door handle. It passed through the solid metal with surprising ease, then gathered in what felt like a hollow pocket inside the door itself. Questing out with her magic, she could feel . . . teeth. _Gears? Part of the locking mechanism? _She frowned. In her training, she'd developed a sort of sense for things inside her field of influence. Over the past couple weeks, she'd grown accustomed to a weighted feeling wherever her sack of coins hung in the air, as if she were physically lifting it. At the time, she hadn't considered that remarkable, but now that tactile awareness allowed her to "feel" the inside of the locking mechanism.

Her field of influence popped, and the sensation disappeared. She shook her head, annoyed at herself for getting distracted. Perhaps in the future she'd be able to use her magic without thinking, but for now, she needed to focus even for simple tasks. _Okay, one more time. First, thread the magic through the handle, then let it gather in that hollow spot . . . __There. _Her magic brushed up against the gears, and—carefully, not sure _how _she was doing it—she wrapped her field of influence around the tiny metal pieces. _Now if I can unlock it—_

Abruptly, the gears started moving on their own, and her field of influence burst, releasing the magic she'd gathered up. She jumped back, hand flying to her chest as she heard a grating noise from the other side of the door. _Oh no, _she thought. _No. I just needed one more minute. They can't check up on me _now_! _

Her fear paralyzed her, so when the door swung open, it struck her center-mass. She staggered back, arms flailing, and fell, hitting her tailbone on the cement floor and knocking over the empty bucket. She threw her arms over her head, eyes squeezing shut. _No. No, this can't be happening. I can't fight them. _

"So _this_ is where they put you."

Her head snapped up, her panic fleeing to a distant corner of her mind as the familiar voice registered with her. Then, slowly, she looked up. "Shougo-san?"


	45. Escape Attempts

Chapter Forty-Five

"Shougo-san? How . . . how did you find me?" Sakura got to her feet, wincing. She'd fallen hard when the door had swung open, and she could only imagine how her bruises would look tomorrow morning. _That doesn't matter now, _she thought, taking a deep breath for the first time in far too long. _I'm being rescued. _"How did you even know I'd been taken? Are Primera and Kyle here? Did you fight them?"

Shougo regarded her for a long moment, his expression grim. When half a minute passed in silence, the spark of hope in her heart began to dim. "You _are _here to rescue me, aren't you?"

"Actually no," he said in a clipped voice, pulling a small knife from his back pocket and spinning it idly in his hands. "I'm here to make sure you stay out of the way until the competition is over."

"The . . . You're . . . _What_?"

"Of course, if you die now, then my master's plan will fall apart. Granted, you're certainly not the most capable protector he could have assigned, but he had to improvise."

_Protector? Master? What is he talking about? _"I don't understand what you mean," she said carefully. "If this is about the competition—"

"It's about the feather."

Her spine went rigid. _He knows something. He knows its not just some __powerful__ battery like everyone else says. _

"I really am sorry it has to be this way," Shougo went on, his voice devoid of any emotion. "If it's any consolation, you'll be released, unharmed, once the competition is over. We just need you out of the picture so that your team will be disqualified from the race. That will allow Kyle, Primera, and I to acquire the feather and bring it to . . . well, you haven't met my master yet, but I'm sure you'll find out all about it when he chooses to reveal himself." He shrugged, a shadow of his usual relaxed persona seeping through the blankness.

_Think, _she told herself. _You have to think. He's obviously not under orders to keep quiet. You have to learn as much as you can so you can use it against him later. _"Why does your master want the feather?"

Shougo shrugged. "It's not my place to ask my master why he operates the way he does."

"Then why do you follow him?" She started to step forward, then froze when Shougo's grip on the knife tightened. Carefully, lifting her hands in surrender, she stepped back. "Why would you follow someone who doesn't tell you why you should listen to them?"

The sandy-haired man eyed her for a moment, then sighed. "You wouldn't understand."

"Please tell me. I'm sure that if you just told me why, I could help you."

His eyes narrowed. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to earn my trust so that I'll let down my guard." He cocked his head to the side, watching her like a cat staring at a cornered mouse. "At any rate, you will remain here. Don't try to escape. I can't be held responsible for anything that happens to you if you do." Stepping back, he closed the door. Sakura winced as she heard him engage the locks, then sank to her knees, pressing her hands to her eyes. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and the convulsions that shook her had nothing to do with the cold cement pressing against her calves, or even the wintry air wafting through the air vent at the top of the cell. She hadn't noticed it in her initial examination of the room, but it wasn't wide enough for her to squeeze through. Perhaps Fai would have known some spell that could shrink her down so she could crawl through it, but it hardly mattered when he likely had no idea where she'd gone.

_ Even_ I _don't__ know where I am, _she thought. _And even if I do escape, Shougo and the others are more likely to find me wandering around than Fai or Syaoran or Kurogane. _The thought made a bubble of distress rise in her throat, and she let out a soft keening noise, clutching her head in her hands. For a time, she stayed like that, curled in on herself, breathing hard, terrified, trapped and alone.

She must have sat there for half an hour, though it felt longer. Then the fear began to fade—not because she'd discovered anything to make her brave, but because her body could no longer sustain such a high level of panic. Fear was by nature a short-lived condition. It could only hold her so long before it settled into a restless anxiety that allowed her to think, to move. Knees stiff, fingers aching, Sakura unfurled, leaning against the wall behind her.

_I have to do something, _she thought. _I can't wait for Shougo or any of the others to let me go. He probably just said that so I wouldn't fight back. _Yes, she could believe that. She didn't _want _to—didn't want to believe that the man who'd taught her about hoverboarding had kidnapped her, or that she would be trapped in this cell until her captors decided to kill her or worse. But she _could _believe it, and there seemed to be little point in believing anything else at the moment. _Already, I am a harder person than I was when I left Clow. _

She closed her eyes, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. Then she got to her feet and walked to the door. Shougo's entry had interrupted her attempts at using her magic to unlock the door, and though one of his teammates was almost certainly guarding the door, she had to try. Perhaps they thought this cell inescapable, or perhaps they'd returned to the park to make it seem like they had nothing to hide.

Her magic came easily this time, flowing from her heart to her fingertips and then leaking into the hollow chamber that contained the locking mechanism. Working slowly, she began twisting the toothy structures inside the lock. She knew nothing of lock-picking, but unlike most burglars, she had the advantage of being able to sense every tiny structure of the mechanism with her magic.

As she worked, she developed a greater sense not only for the pieces of the lock, but for her own magic. Fai had taught her how to create a field of influence, and she had intuited a bit about manipulating objects _within _that field, but now, so acutely focused on her task, she felt her magic questing out like little threads, wrapping around the structures she wanted to manipulate and moving them as she wanted. It was the same thing she'd done when she'd been levitating the coin pouch during her lessons, but on an even smaller scale.

After a few fruitless minutes, she changed tactics, wrapping the threads around one another, forming braids of magic. Those moved the gears much more readily, though they frayed and vanished if she let her attention lapse even for a moment. Still, they greatly sped up the process. _All I have to do now is figure out which way to turn everything . . . _

The lock _clicked _open. Sakura's eyes flew open, and for a few seconds, all she could do was gape at the door, certain that someone was about to open it from the other side. When no one did, she cautiously tried the handle. It gave no resistance, and she pulled the door open, peering out into the hallway. _I did it! _

She stepped out into the empty corridor, then realized she had no idea where to go. Since neither her cell nor this hallway had any windows, she guessed she was either below-ground or near the center of one of the other floors. _I'll go left, _she decided, hurrying down the corridor. After a few steps, she stopped to take off her shoes, reasoning that she would be able to walk much more quietly wearing only socks. _Let's hope there's nothing here for me to step on, _she thought, leaving the shoes just inside her cell and closing the door so no one would realize she'd left unless they actually entered the room.

Metal doors segmented the otherwise featureless hallway, each one numbered. Fluorescent lights gave the whole corridor a sense of sterility. Perhaps this building served some other function, or perhaps the other rooms housed more comfortable furnishings. Either way, she dared not enter any room in case Shougo or his teammates were there.

She reached the end of the hallway and turned right, speeding up. Being so close to the intersections of the corridors felt dangerous. It exposed her. Better to move past them as quickly as possible so she could find a window or—better yet—an exit.

At the next intersection, she turned left. The one after, she turned right, maintaining a zigzagging pattern which, she hoped, would eventually lead her to the edge of the building. But when she heard faint voices up ahead, she jerked to a stop, almost tripping over her feet. Her heart fluttered, and her lungs ceased their rapid movement.

"Did you try rebooting the computer?"

"Of course. I'm not an idiot."

"You might be overloading your system. Have you downloaded any big files lately?"

"No. It's a virus. I'm sure of it."

_Not familiar. Not any of Shougo's teammates. _The thought thawed her frozen legs. Before the speakers could get any closer, she darted away, backtracking until the voices faded to nothingness. Then, realizing she'd thrown off her sense of direction, she slowed. Her pulse roared in her ears, and even the thrill she felt at avoiding the strangers couldn't overshadow the growing panic in her gut. She'd been lost from the moment she'd woken up—the only clues she had about her general whereabouts were the fact that she could still understand everyone, which meant Mokona was close, and the eerie emptiness of the place. It felt so clinical, so detached, and rife with the complex technology that filled the rest of the city. Perhaps this was a factory, or an office building, or even some sort of research center. Perhaps her cell had originally been a storage closet, or a place where test subjects could be monitored. Who could say? _  
><em>

She kept walking. It didn't matter what kind of building this was. All that mattered was escaping. _If I can just find my way out, then all I have to do is get somewhere safe and ask for directions. _

"Hey, get back here!"

The shout made her leap a foot in the air, but it was the voice that send a cold shock through her body. _Shougo. _Before she could think anything more coherent, she broke into a sprint, feet pounding against the steel-gray carpet. Behind her, Shougo's footfalls echoed against the walls, the only indication of distance she had as she frantically searched for door that might lead elsewhere. _Have to get out. Have to get away. _

"Primera! Kyle!" Anger suffused Shougo's voice. Other, fainter footfalls sounded all around her, from every direction. As she raced down the corridor, Kyle intercepted her from another hallway, spindly fingers snatching her forearm. Without a conscious thought, her fist whipped around, knuckles slamming into the bespectacled man's nose. The resulting _crack _sent a rush of visceral satisfaction through her, even as the gentler part of her mind recoiled in horror at her own instinctive violence.

Kyle let go, clutching his nose as blood gushed out of it. Sakura shoved past him, nearly losing her balance as speed and fear made her clumsy. At the intersection of the next corridor, Primera stood, hands half-raised as if to block her passage. Sakura hesitated for a breath, then sped up as she heard Shougo pushing past his bloodied comrade. _I'd rather face Primera than Shougo, _Sakura thought, charging the older girl. To her surprise, Primera stepped to the side, lifting her hands in surrender. _Letting me go? _Sakura wondered. _Impossible, _another part of her mind snapped. _Why would she just stand by while Kyle drugged you if she wanted to let you go? _

As she passed Primera, the dull red glow of an exit sign caught her eye. She raced toward it, not caring where it led so long as it led outside. _Yes, if I can just get outside, I can yell for help. They won't follow me if they think other people might get involved. _

Muscular arms wrapped around her midsection, and the added momentum toppled her. She hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, and for a moment, her vision darkened, like a room cast into shadow by a flickering light. A metal edge pressed against her throat, threatening to draw blood. _A knife. He has a knife. _ "It would seem that we underestimated your ability to escape," Shougo whispered in her ear. The arm around her stomach tightened, squeezing the air out of her lungs and making her eyes water. Shougo's blade dug deeper into her neck. "Mind telling us how?"

_Magic, _she thought, though she couldn't have spoken even if she'd wanted to, with no air in her lungs. Her body flailed; Shougo's grip grew tighter. _Have to get away . . ._ One of her shoulders shot forward, momentarily knocking the knife out of place. She tucked her chin against her collarbone, hiding her throat. Shougo let out a curse, fist tightening around the knife's handle as he struggled to hold her down. _The knife, _she thought, reaching out with her magic. A field of influence gathered next to her cheek, no larger than her head and invisible except to that sixth sense that kept track of her own magic. Remembering her trick with the locking mechanism, she channeled several threads of energy into the field of influence and let them twist around each other, forming thicker strands of energy.

"Stay still," Shougo growled. "Or I really _will _kill you."

She used her magic to reach for the knife. The threads coiled around the metal, and she became aware of its keen edge. It wasn't like grabbing the blade with her hand. It didn't hurt. But she could still _feel _its sharpness, its weight. It wouldn't take much force to drive it through flesh.

With her magic, she ripped the knife from Shougo's hands and sent it flipping backward, toward his face. Warm, wet blood splattered against the back of her head, soaking her hair, and she heard Shougo scream as his hands clamped over the injury. Freed, Sakura shot forward, not daring to look behind her to see the damage. She'd wanted to hurt him enough to make him let go, but she hadn't wanted to permanently scar somebody. Or worse. _Later. Worry about it later. _She slammed into the door at the end of the hallway, shoving it open. A gust of cold air made her heart soar, and she raced into the night, Shougo's screams fading fast behind her.


	46. Injuries

_Author's Note:_

_General notice for readers of all my stories: _

_If I don't update all the fics I've started within the next seven days (TRC or otherwise), you all have the right to start sending hate mail. Seriously. Please. I write more when I feel I have something to prove, so bring on the complaints._

* * *

><p>Chapter Forty-Six<p>

Primera screamed as blood spurted from Shougo's face.

"Oh _shit,"_ Kyle squeaked, his eyes flashing to her. "Get a towel or something!"

It took a few seconds for Primera's legs to unfreeze. _You have to do _something. _You can't just stand around and wait for Shougo to stop screaming. _She drew in a tremulous breath, then ran to the nearest bathroom. Her heart thumped in her ears the entire time, and her fingers shook as she snatched wads of paper towels from the dispenser. _I should run, _she thought. _Get away, before Shougo asks why I didn't tackle the girl when I had the chance._

She shook off the thought. Running would only make her look guilty. Better to keep playing along, pretending to be concerned, pretending that she'd let the princess slip by because she'd panicked, not because she'd insinuated herself into Shougo's inner circle to thwart his attempt to delay the princess. _Too many hours of planning have gone into making sure things don't turn out the way Shougo's master wants, _Primera thought, trying to get her breathing to level out. She'd failed to drive the princess away from Shougo's grasp. She would not fail again. _  
><em>

Slightly calmer, she bundled up the wads of paper towels she'd collected—probably more than she'd actually need—and headed back to the spot in the hallway where Shougo had fallen. Just before entering the hallway where he'd been injured, she raked her fingers through her hair, making it look windblown and disheveled. Anything to make her panic seem more authentic. If she broke cover, she had no doubt he'd kill her. Then, breathing hard as if she'd sprinted the whole way, she ran toward Shougo.

"What took you so long?" Kyle demanded. He'd ripped a piece of his shirt off and used to to cover Shougo's eye, which continued to bleed sluggishly. Distantly, Primera wondered if the eye would have to be surgically removed.

"I ran as fast as I could," she lied, crouching down next to Shougo and pressing some of the paper towels to the gash on his face. "Move that cloth, Kyle. It's sopping wet. It won't do any good."

As Kyle moved the strip of cloth away, Primera saw the damage. There wasn't an eye left to remove; the knife had slid straight into the socket—an improbably lucky shot, though she supposed that wasn't surprising, given what Yuuko had told her about the girl—and only a few watery bits of sclera remained, dripping down. "Has anyone called an ambulance?" she asked Kyle.

"Yeah, one of the computer techs, when he heard the screaming."

"Okay."

"Prim, I don't think he's going to be able to race tomorrow."

_Good, _she thought. "Stop thinking about the race, Kyle. He could _die_." She added a touch of hysteria to her voice, keeping with her worried girlfriend act. She kept applying pressure to the wound. Shougo had stopped screaming before she'd returned, but he was still breathing. Probably in shock. That worried her. She didn't _really _want him to die. Hell, she didn't want _anyone _to die. What little she knew about Shougo's connection to his mysterious master, she'd gleaned from vague conversations with Yuuko. The enemy had some sort of hold over him, perhaps magical, perhaps personal. Shougo was a puppet. Not completely innocent, but she doubted he deserved death.

Outside, she heard the distant wail of sirens. The ambulance. Good. It would take Shougo away and that would give her time to think, to relay what had happened to Yuuko. _Maybe after this, I'll be allowed to go home, _she thought as the ambulance parked outside. Or maybe she'd land in some other world, and Yuuko would give her another task to complete before she was allowed to move on. _You'd better be worth it, princess. You have no idea how many people are counting on you._

* * *

><p>Sakura staggered through the dark streets, socks crusted with blood. She'd left her shoes in the cell where Shougo and his friends had left her, hoping that her footfalls would be softer if she wore only socks. She hadn't considered the fact that she'd need shoes once she'd escaped the building to avoid stepping on the loose rocks and broken glass so prevalent in this run-down segment of the city.<p>

_Don't think about the pain, _she told herself. Within five minutes of escaping the building, she'd reached the edge of Mokona's translation range. She hadn't turned around, out of fear that Shougo and his friends might still be chasing her. So for a time she'd wandered through the streets, feet bleeding from a dozen small cuts, unable to understand a word anyone said to her and, by extension, unable to ask for help.

Eventually, she'd circled the block, ducking into a public office building for a few minutes, picking bits of glass out of her socks. When she started walking again, she could tell she hadn't gotten all of them, but at least the cold ground had numbed her feet enough that she could keep going.

". . . saw an ambulance park in front of the old research center," someone said, and Sakura perked up as she realized she could understand him.

"An ambulance?" said the first speaker's companion, a dark-haired girl in a red beret. The couple passed Sakura, ignoring her as if she were invisible. "What happened?"

"Some guy got stabbed in the eye."

Sakura froze. _No, _she thought, breath catching. _It can't be. _

"In the _eye_?" The girl sounded aghast.

"Yep. I hung around a bit, and I saw the EMTs load him into the ambulance. Guy had blood all over his face."

The girl's voice quieted. "Was he dead?"

"Dunno. Maybe."

Their voices faded as they moved further away. Sakura remained rooted where she stood, hands trembling. _It can't be. It can't be that bad. They must be talking about someone else. _Her thoughts sounded hollow in her own mind. The odds of it being anyone except Shougo were absurd. Which meant at the very least that she'd seriously maimed him. Possibly killed him.

She staggered forward, knees shaking. She barely made it to a nearby trashcan before heat rushed up her throat. Her stomach pitched violently as she threw up. If she had killed someone . . . _It can't be true. I can't be a murderer. _

Barely cognizant of her surroundings, she sank to her knees, sagging against the side of the trashcan. Her vision had gone spotty when the couple's voices had faded behind her. As she collapsed, it went dark.

* * *

><p>The streets of Avantine grew noticeably less busy as the night deepened. Fai peered down an alleyway, hoping against all reason that Sakura had taken shelter there, amidst the cardboard boxes and refuse. But the only inhabitants of this alley were a handful of rats munching on something he couldn't identify.<p>

"She's probably found her way back to the apartment," Kurogane muttered behind him.

Fai glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the red-eyed man before returning his attention to their search. "However reckless she may be, she wouldn't worry us on purpose. If she expected to be out past dark, she would have let us know."

"Right. Because reckless people always make sure to leave a note saying they'll be back before bedtime."

"No need to sound so sour, Kuro-pon." Fai grinned, though he felt no actual cheer. "You wouldn't be out searching for her if you weren't at least a little bit worried." _I wouldn't be searching if her role in all this wasn't so pivotal. _The thought nearly made him wince—he had not meant to think it at all—but it was partially true. Sakura had been sent on this journey to gather Syaoran's memories, and Fai . . . well, he had a task of his own, and part of that was protecting Sakura until she could protect herself. Still, it had been . . . uncharitable of him to think her _role _in this group more important than her actual safety. Uncharitable and, unfortunately, necessary. _Don't think about it. It will be so much easier if you don't let yourself think about what must be done. _

Realizing his pace had slowed during his musings, he sped up, scanning his surroundings. He'd hoped he would pass near enough to Sakura's location to sense her magic signature. For that, he needed only his finely tuned sense for magic—no spells or other enchantments required—but he had yet to catch even a hint of her unique energy in the air. In fact, he had yet to sense _any _magic anywhere in the area. _It's almost as if Avantine doesn't have any magic-users in it at all. _He hadn't thought such a thing was possible until he'd started this journey, and he still couldn't quite believe that some worlds survived with no magic at all. _Even after decades of study, I can still be narrow-minded in some ways. _

"If she got lost, she'd be smart enough to stay in the meat bun's translation range, right?"

"Hmm?" Fai glanced over his shoulder at Kurogane. "Oh, yes, I suppose. Assuming she's _lost_ and not in danger."

"You think someone kidnapped her." It wasn't a question.

"It's a possibility."

"You didn't mention that _possibility _in front of the kid."

"Syaoran-kun will worry enough without us pointing out the real dangers."

He heard Kurogane's footfalls cease. "Mage."

Fai paused mid-step, looking back with a smile as false as a magic mirror's reflection. "Yes, Kuro-chan?"

"I get that you don't want to worry the kid, but he has a right to know what could be happening to his princess. If it turns out that she's dead or captured, you won't be protecting him by lying about it."

"I haven't lied about a thing," he said brightly. "It's entirely possible that Sakura-chan is just lost. And you may be right—she could have found her way back to the apartment while we were searching."

The ninja's eyes didn't so much as flicker. The two of them kept walking, and Fai focused his senses outward, searching for Sakura's magic signature. He hadn't had much time to learn it—it could take weeks for a person to really grow accustomed to someone's magic signature, and Sakura's magic had started out so limited that he had hardly been able to sense it at all. It had grown in power—magic usually did, the more you used it—but he would still have to be relatively close to sense it. "You seem worried about her, Kuro-chii."

"She's a teenage girl with no weapons, barely any magic, and a complete lack of regard for her own safety," the ninja said flatly. "You'd have to be pretty goddamn cold not to be worried."

_So he_ is_ starting to care about the kids, _Fai thought. A part of him had wondered if it was solely the man's moral compass—skewed as it had initially seemed—that had prompted him to watch over the children. But he seemed to be warming up to them. _Perhaps with time, he'll grow less suspicious of me, _Fai thought, about to tease Kurogane about his protective streak. Then he felt a prickling sensation—not on any part of his body, but in the air to his left. He turned his head, breathing in. The tingling in the air intensified, a silent vibration he felt with his magic sense.

Ahead of him, Kurogane had stopped, turned back to look at him. "What—"

"I can sense her." Fai backtracked a few feet, to the corner of the sidewalk, and hurried in the direction he'd felt Sakura's magic. Kurogane followed fast on his heels.

"How far?"

"A couple blocks." Ahead of him, Sakura's magic signature wavered, fading until it was almost imperceptible, then returning, like a flame rekindled with a handful of straw. _Using her magic? _he wondered. _Or hiding it? _The latter seemed unlikely, since he hadn't taught her anything about magical concealment, but she _had _known a bit of her world's magic before this journey had started. A darker explanation formed in his mind, one he almost didn't dare contemplate for fear of what consequences it would bring for his own mission. Sakura's magic might weaken if she were to fall unconscious. And if she were unconscious . . . "We have to hurry. I think she's hurt."


	47. Painful Dreams

Chapter Forty-Seven

Dreams.

Sakura stood at the edge of a circular pool, staring into the shadowed depths. Tiny white lights moved beneath the water, and even with the murky view, she recognized them as magic. _How strange, _she thought, kneeling down on the chilly stone floor. At the bottom of the pool, cloaked in shadow, she saw a spindly figure. Its hair, limp and matted, swirled around its body, concealing it, but there was something . . . familiar about it.

"You do not belong here."

With a squeak, she leaped to her feet. Spinning, she came face to face with a tall, dark-eyed man in regal white and blue robes. Curtains of sleek black hair rested over his shoulders, perfectly flat and glossy.

The front of his robes bore several brownish-red splotches. Sakura shivered, memories flickering through her mind. Shougo's howling scream. The feel of his knife as her magic sent it flying backward. The flecks of blood that had spattered the carpet as she'd fled.

"You should not be here, child," the man said somberly. "You will not like what you see."

"What is this place?" she asked, stepping forward. Her footfalls echoed against the stone floor. "Who are you?"

The man studied her for a moment. Pity sparked in his eyes. "I've had many dreams about you, child. With all that, I will admit I hadn't foreseen this meeting. You may call me Ashura. This place is . . . a room in my castle, for lack of a better term. Or a manifestation of that room, at least. A room you do not want to be in."

"But—" The scenery blurred, changing colors like a kaleidoscope tumbling before her eyes. Suddenly, they stood in a clearing where the sunlight sparkled against the untouched snow around them. Sakura stared, transfixed. She'd never seen snow before. Or . . . no, she _had _seen snow, but only briefly, in someone else's dream. The memory nibbled at her mind for a moment, but she hadn't been aware of her dreamwalking then, and so she hadn't made a point to remember the dream. _I should really start writing these things down. _

"You should not be here," Ashura said. "Dreamwalking is a dangerous art for those who do not understand it."

She felt a stab of shame. Despite his regal air, this man possessed a faint, fatherly demeanor, and his censure struck her harder than she'd have liked. "I can't learn if I don't try," she said. _But you weren't trying, _her mind whispered. _You don't even remember falling asleep. _

"Can one not learn about cooking from cookbooks?" Ashura asked, ice touching his eyes. "Must a person experience history firsthand to learn it?"

Sakura hesitated.

"You did not mean to come here," Ashura went on. "You stumble into the dreams of others without understanding the consequences. You touch the minds of the people you love without realizing what your presence there does to them." The scenery shifted again, this time to a cluster of stone buildings. Snow fell in soft puffs from the overcast sky, settling on rooftops and lining the outside edges of windows. The mesmerizing sight distracted her so that she didn't immediately realize that many of the roofs had collapsed in places, that the glass of the windows wore specks of blood and soot.

"What happened here?" she whispered, her voice thin.

"Murder," Ashura said calmly. "Murder happened here."

"I don't . . . Why are you showing me this?"

The king turned to her—she didn't know how she knew he was a king, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it to be a fact. The sun rose in the east. The sky was blue. Ashura was a king. Undeniable, empirical facts. The ice in Ashura's eyes had vanished, replaced by a terrible mix of hunger and regret. "You flinch away from murder, but that is hardly the worst fate that could befall someone who walks in the minds of others. A warrior marches into battle knowing he can be slain a hundred different ways. Arrows, swords, poison, daggers . . . Even a child playing at being a hero knows that if he jumps off a cliff, he will not suddenly gain the ability to fly. Yet you step into this world of dreams, into the deepest, most secret parts of people's minds, and you have no idea what dangers you face."

"I don't understand," she whispered, but another part of her was afraid that she _did _understand, that the consequences of her unconscious visits to this place might be more horrifying than a slow death on a battlefield.

"Madness. Agony. Suffering. Truth." Ashura paused. "Truth is the hardest thing to face. One could even say it contributes to the other dangers. Because when you see the darkest, most hateful parts of another person's mind, when you live through their nightmares night after night, when you can _feel _how much they despise you . . . Yes, it's easy to understand how that might drive a person mad. And madness is one of the kinder fates that waits for you in this place."

Another shift. Cold iron wrapped around her wrists, drawing her arms up above her head and straining the ligaments in her shoulder. Sakura tried to pull her arms inward, then gasped when the chains resisted. "What are you doing to me?"

Ashura stared at her. His expression reminded her of a child ripping the wings off a bug. "What am I doing?" he asked softly. An ornate dagger appeared in his hands. "Why, I'm teaching you a lesson, of course."

The chains tightened with a sudden snap, ripping the ligaments in her shoulder. Sakura screamed, her vision going white at the edges. "Let me out!" she cried, lifting her head. Tomoyo had told her once that all she needed to do to escape a dream was to ask to be let out. She waited for the chains to disappear, waited to find herself floating outside the dream.

Nothing happened.

"You cannot escape," Ashura said. "Or, rather, you can, but in your ignorance, you don't know how."

"Let me out!" she shouted, straining against her chains. "Let me _out_!"

"Do you want to know something about dreamseers?" Ashura asked, his voice light. "Our awareness of the dream world makes us more powerful than regular dreamers. When two dreamseers occupy the same dream, the more experienced dreamseer can overwhelm and capture the other. A skilled dreamseer can influence any dream to become a trap. There are ways to escape. There are _always _ways to escape. But they do you no good if you are too inexperienced to find them.

"You see, child, the dream you have walked into belongs neither to you or to me. In fact, the dreamer has not yet entered the dream, although it will pain him greatly when he sees what has been done to you. It is . . . unfortunate that I have to get his attention this way. If only he hadn't run from me, you might not be here."

Impossibly, the chains pulled even tighter. Sakura whimpered, too terrified to scream. _I have to get out of here, _she thought, tears sliding down her cheeks. "Let me go . . ."

"Fear not," Ashura went on, his voice placid. "I will not break your mind to make a point. It would take an even greater monster than I to pull another dreamwalker into madness. Not to say that sanity is always preferable, but you never _can _predict the ways in which a mind will shatter. But I think that this—" He laid the point of his dagger against her throat "—will be sufficient to remind my ward that he has a task to do. After all, we all have a killing instinct buried deep within ourselves. Even someone as gentle as you."

The blade slid across her throat and drowned her world in agony.

* * *

><p>They found her curled up next to a trash can. "Sakura-chan," the mage whispered, sprinting the last few steps and kneeling where she'd fallen.<p>

"Check for a pulse," Kurogane snapped. When the magician only stared at the princess's body, Kurogane shoved him aside and pressed two fingers to the girl's neck. He felt a pulse, weak and thready. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hoisted her up, shocked by the coldness of her skin. The night had grown cold enough that he'd been glad for his coat, but the princess had been lying here for who knew how long, wearing only a flimsy jacket. The cement sidewalk would have sucked the heat right out of her. _Lucky we found her before she froze to death, _he thought, stripping off his own coat and wrapping it around her torso. "We've got to get her inside."

The mage didn't respond—he looked almost as pale as the girl—so Kurogane shoved past him, heading toward the nearest lighted doorway, the entrance to a bakery almost half a block away. He sensed the mage trailing after him after a few minutes and cursed the man for being too shocked to do anything useful.

"Welcome!" said the man behind the counter. His cheerful demeanor evaporated when he saw the princess Kurogane carried. "What the—"

"You got someplace warm?" Kurogane demanded. "Because she's halfway to being frozen to death, and we don't have time to stand around."

The man nodded numbly, gesturing for him to go around the counter and into the back room. "We still got a couple ovens going. Baking stuff for tomorrow, y'know? It'll be warm next to those."

"This better be important," said an irate female voice as they pushed through the swinging door. "You're supposed to be reorganizing the display case." The speaker came into view, a thin, dark-skinned woman with tattoos running down her toned forearms.

Kurogane gaped. "_Souma_?"

Souma's eyes flashed to his face, somehow conveying both annoyance and bafflement. "Yeah, that's me. What's it to you?"

"Did Tomoyo send you here? Aren't you supposed to be guarding Amaterasu? And what's with the tattoos? What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?"

Fai nudged his elbow, hissing in his ear. "Kuro-pon, I don't think that's the same Souma you know from your world. You may want to stop talking for a minute."

"Okay, what the hell's going on here?" Souma asked, looking sharply at the guy who'd been running the counter. "Who are these guys, Masayoshi?"

"Um . . . Well . . ." He gave Kurogane a pleading look, but it was Fai who stepped forward, smoothly explaining the situation (and dismissing Kurogane's "crazy talk" as a side-effect of him not taking his medication this morning, an explanation which Kurogane did _not_ appreciate). Quickly, Souma directed them toward a cramped alcove next to one of the bigger ovens, where Kurogane laid the princess so she could warm up.

"Shouldn't you take her to the hospital or something?" Souma asked, scowling in the princess's direction. "I don't know if my insurance covers this sort of thing."

Kurogane was about to call her out on her callousness when Fai replied. "No, don't worry about it. This sort of thing happens all the time."

Souma arched one perfect eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yep. Sakura-chan here has had fainting spells her whole life, so when she didn't come home on time, we went looking for her. It's not the first time something like this has happened, but she'll be all right."

It was a good lie, considering the idiot had only had about three seconds to come up with it. A little too good a lie, to Kurogane's mind, but he had to agree that dealing with the hospital in this city would raise unnecessary questions about the girl's conspicuous lack of medical history or birth records, both of which had hindered their attempts to get proper identification when they'd first arrived in this world.

"All right," Souma said at last, crossing her arms. "But I _will _call an ambulance if she gets worse. Now get out of my kitchen. I've got a lot of work to get done."

_She's suspicious of us, _Kurogane realized, feeling a hot prickle of anger in his stomach. The Souma _he _knew would never imply that he had ill intentions for a little girl, and it rankled that this alternate version of her would dare treat him like some kind of criminal.

"Let's get out of everyone's way, shall we, Kuro-rin?" Fai grabbed his upper arm, pulling him toward the doorway. "Sakura-chan will be just fine."

Growling under his breath, Kurogane let the mage lead him out into the empty customer area. "Don't see why _we _had to leave. _We're _the ones who found her. We're not criminals."

"_Listen,_" Fai said sharply, all traces of humor or friendliness gone from his voice. "This is not your world. _This _world doesn't play by the same rules as yours, and you already know that there are alternate versions of the people you know. You have to learn to keep your mouth _shut_."

Kurogane blinked, startled by the tight anger in the idiot's voice. Up until now, the mage had been cheerful to the point of being annoying. The few times he'd shown any negative emotion, he'd done so quietly. Coldly. Like when Kurogane had accused him of lying about his purpose on this journey a few nights ago. So the open frustration in the idiot's voice threw him off. "I already know all that."

"If you know that, you should act like it." Fai stepped back, scowling at him in a way that seemed to contradict every shade of emotion Kurogane had ever seen from him. "Ignorance is dangerous, especially when you don't know a world well enough to know when you're in danger. Even if we can't learn enough about every world to move through it safely, you could at least do us the courtesy of not breaking our cover at the slightest impulse."

Kurogane stared at him, too shocked to be furious. And too aware of the truth in the mage's words to defend himself. Fuck. What if the idiot hadn't been able to think of a plausible lie? What if he hadn't been able to smooth things over with this Souma so that she wouldn't alert the authorities? And how the _hell _had Kurogane wound up in this position, forced to _rely _on the mage's lies?

Minutes passed. The mage slumped into one of the chairs facing away from Kurogane, his shoulders tight. Eventually, Kurogane sat down at one of the other tables, trying hard not to think. He'd just managed to clear his head when he heard the princess cry out.


	48. Evasive Answers

Chapter Forty-Eight

Pain shuddered through Sakura's mind and body, the dream breaking apart like a vase crashing to the floor. Blackness swallowed up her vision, chasing away all sensation, all thought.

For an instant, she hung in the abyss, as formless as a flame. For an instant, she ceased to exist.

And then she woke. Her arms flailed wildly, Ashura's chains gone from her wrists, the ligaments in her shoulders whole, unbroken. Her hands flew to her throat, clutching a wound that wasn't really there. Hysteria scattered her mind again, and it took her a full three seconds to realize she was screaming.

"Sakura-chan!"

Fai's voice pierced the tumult in her mind. Her body went rigid, something playing along the edges of her memory—

_a__ blue-eyed boy standing in a valley of corpses, skin stretched tight over bone, body shivering as puffs of snow floated down from the sky, so pure and white that it made the boy look even more sickly than he __might __otherwise, and the way he looked at her, it hurt, it hurt so much because he was _suffering, _and there was something about the snow that reminded her of the clearing King Ashura had brought her to before the room with the chains, before that knife had appeared in his hands_

—but the memory slipped away before she could catch hold of it. She slumped where she sat, numb.

"Sakura-chan," Fai said again, crouching in front of her. "Are you all right? Do you know who I am?"

_What a strange question, _she thought, blinking slowly. "Fai-san?" Her voice sounded far away. "I thought . . ." She trailed off, not really sure what she'd thought, then closed her eyes. "How did you find me?"

"I traced your magical signature." Relief glimmered in his eyes, and he gave her a striking grin that somehow seemed more authentic than his usual smiles. Again, something tickled at the edges of her memory—

_d__ressed in rags, hair down to his waist, and it's so matted, like it hasn't been brushed in months, yet the boy speaks almost formally, and something in her heart breaks because every time she looks into his eyes, he seems so very, very lonely_

—but it slipped away again. She felt strangely lightheaded. And slower, like her thoughts had turned to molasses. Almost like she'd felt after Kyle had drugged her, except that she was certain she hadn't ingested anything since waking up as Shougo's prisoner.

That train of thought led to something darker, something that cut through her fuzzy thoughts like a razor blade. Shougo, pressing a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she didn't cooperate. Herself, racing through the corridors, sick with fear, then using her magic to propel Shougo's knife backward, toward his face. He had screamed, she remembered, a scream that resonated with such raw agony that she hadn't dared look back for fear of what she would see.

"Hey." The second voice broke through her reverie, and she flinched, a weaker stab of remorse piercing the guilt over the pain she'd caused in her desperation to escape. She looked up to see Kurogane looming over her, his expression unreadable.

"I . . ." _I should have listened to him, _she thought, eyes blurring with tears. _If I had just listened when he told me to stay away from Shougo, I'd never have ended up in that situation. _Pressing her palms to her face, she began to cry in earnest.

"Hey," Kurogane said again, shifting uncomfortably. "Don't . . . Don't _do _that."

"Kuro-chii, why don't you let me handle this?"

"Hold on," a third voice said. Sakura didn't recognize the woman who'd spoken, though she instantly got the impression of someone who worked hard to be tough but who also had the capacity for great compassion. Like her brother, in a way. "Here," the woman went on, handing her a warm chocolate-chip cookie sheathed in paper. "You'll feel better after you eat something."

Sakura stared longingly at the cookie, torn between devouring it right now and quietly disposing of it later in case it contained any substance like the one Kyle had used to tranquilize her. It was a paranoid notion. Obviously, not everyone in the city could be in on Shougo's plan. But she had _trusted _him, trusted his friends, even Primera, who had spoken harshly even when she'd pretended to teach Sakura hoverboarding techniques. Trusting _anyone _seemed dangerous now.

"Why don't you tell us what happened?" Fai suggested, giving her an encouraging smile. A vivid image of Shougo's body lying in a pool of blood flickered through her mind. _No! No, you didn't look. You don't know that he's dead. He might not even be badly hurt . . . _

The last part she knew for a lie, even as she thought it. She had heard the grating, bestial scream Shougo had let out when she'd used her magic to send his knife flying back toward his face. No one could fake that kind of agony.

So rather than explaining, she just shook her head vigorously, bringing her knees close to her chest and squeezing her eyes shut.

"Have you been hurt?" Fai asked, his voice gentle.

Had she been hurt? With the exception of a few scrapes and bruises, no. Emotionally, she'd suffered, but that was mostly her own doing, wasn't it? Sure, Shougo's betrayal had hurt, but that was not the bulk of her pain. No, the worst things were those within her own mind. Tonight, she had either maimed or killed someone. Justifying it as self-defense hardly lessened the terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. And after, when she'd fainted, that dream . . . She bore no physical injuries from what had been done to her, but the shock of being tortured, however briefly, would have been emotionally scarring enough without everything that had happened before. As it was, she couldn't fully process the dream. Her mind couldn't handle it right now, so she shoved it away for later examination.

"I'm tired," she said at last. The sentiment sounded so inadequate. "I want to go home."

Kurogane and Fai stared at her for several seconds, then glanced at each other, neither looking quite sure what to do. "All right," Fai said at last, offering a hand to help her up. "We can go back to the apartment."

She opened her mouth to tell him that wasn't what she'd _meant_. She didn't want to go back to the apartment, she wanted to go _home, _to Clow, to her brother and Yukito and her old life where Syaoran still remembered her, where things were simple, where her destiny was spelled out for her. But she said nothing. What good would saying such things do? The others could no more send her home than she send herself.

"Where are your shoes?" Kurogane asked as they walked out of the bakery.

Sakura looked down at her bloody feet. "I thought I'd be able to walk more quietly without them, so I took them off," she said, then realized her explanation would make no sense to them, as they had no idea what had happened to her over the past few hours. She looked away.

"You shouldn't walk on wounded feet," Kurogane said after a moment, holding out a hand. "I'll carry you."

Her eyes flashed to his face, then darted away. She shook her head. "I can walk."

"Quit being so goddamn stubborn."

"Kuro-chan," Fai said, a warning in his voice.

"I can walk," Sakura insisted. What were a few tiny scrapes on her feet compared to the pain she'd caused today?

Her companions muttered to each other, voices pitched low so she couldn't catch more than a few words. Slowly, Kurogane's expression darkened, like a storm cloud passing across the sky. But whatever Fai said, Kurogane eventually agreed, as they allowed her to walk unassisted.

As long as she'd been wandering, it shocked her to realize she'd been hardly three blocks away from the apartment when she'd passed out. A pitifully short distance compared to how far she'd run in her attempts to evade capture. But most of her running had been in twisting, looping patterns, meant to confuse her pursuers, if indeed they'd chosen to pursue her. She had remained in Mokona's translation range during most of her wanderings, so it made sense that she'd been close to the safety of the apartment all day, but still . . . _I was so close, _she thought miserably, _and I still had to be rescued. _

"I'm sure Syaoran-kun will be happy to know you're safe," Fai said, nudging her elbow.

Sakura looked up at him dully, then let her head droop as they entered the lobby. "I suppose so."

"All right, I've had enough of this," Kurogane said, striding ahead of them and punching the elevator's call button. "What happened? Where have you been?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, you're _going _to talk about it."

Cold fury skated across the edges of her mind, then disappeared as quick as a camera flash. It took her a moment to realize she'd spun dozens of threads of magic—that she'd created a field of influence that encompassed the three of them, then allowed the twining tendrils of magic to flow out of her fingers like spider-silk. In the corner of her vision, she saw Fai stiffen, the color bleeding out of his face. "I don't want to talk about it," she repeated softly.

Kurogane opened his mouth to argue—unlike Fai, he had no way of sensing the delicate strands of magic that hung in the air around them, a larger web than any Sakura had woven before—but Fai grabbed his shoulder, knuckles whitening with the force of his grip. She felt only distant surprise when Kurogane's mouth snapped shut with an audible _click_.

"You're right," Fai said. He smiled, but his eyes watched her like a cornered rabbit might watch a hunting wolf. "Let's not talk about it right now. We can worry about all that later."

Sakura frowned, and as her concentration broke, so too did the field of influence she'd summoned. A moment later, the elevator doors parted with a _ding_, and she stepped past her guardians and into the cramped box. _It's almost the same size as the little room Shougo locked me in, _she thought, feeling a quiver of fear through the haze in her brain. The tremor traveled to her hands, and she wrapped her fingers around the railing as the elevator began to rise. She had to close her eyes to push away the thought of that tiny cell. With her magic, it had taken only a few minutes to escape, but that hadn't diminished the feeling of being trapped. Without magic, she'd have been completely helpless, at her captors' mercy.

The elevator lurched to a halt, and her eyes flew open. Her breathing steadied as the doors parted, and she scrambled into the wide hallway, palms damp with sweat. Kurogane and Fai trailed after her, keeping their distance. When she finally reached the door of their apartment, she fished through her pockets for her card key, hissing when she realized she'd lost it.

"What?" Kurogane asked.

_Shougo stole my card key. _Anger tumbled through the sickening anxiety she'd felt a moment ago, and for the first time since she'd passed out, she began to feel _awake_. Shougo or one of his friends had not only kidnapped and imprisoned her, but had pawed through her pockets while she'd slept and taken the key to the apartment. She had a vivid flash of ripping them all apart, muscle by muscle, until they were nothing but bones and—

_What is _wrong _with me? _"I . . . I think I dropped my card key somewhere," she said faintly.

"That's okay," Fai assured her quickly, sliding between her and the door and using his own card key to open it. "Don't worry about a thing, Sakura-chan. We'll get you a new key tomorrow."

The door opened, revealing a living room that looked simultaneously familiar and alien. Inside, Syaoran paced in front of the sofa, eyebrows pulled together in worry. When he saw her, he froze mid-step, then rushed over. "Sakura! You're all right."

She thought about what she'd done, what she'd just _thought _about doing, and decided that she was as far from "all right" as she had ever been. Still, she found herself closing the last few meters of space between them, her steps shaky. She wrapped her arms around Syaoran's chest, pressing her face into the collar of his shirt, breathing in his familiar scent. He returned the embrace, his grip fierce, warm, and Sakura allowed herself to forget that he no longer remembered all the years they'd spent together—that he would _never _remember those years—and she allowed herself to be held.


	49. Damages

Chapter Forty-Nine

Fai stood near the edge of the living room, keeping a firm grip on Kurogane's elbow so the man wouldn't traipse into danger like a child. It wasn't really fair of him to keep the dark-haired man on a leash without telling him why, particularly since Kurogane had no way of knowing how close he'd come to being flayed alive by a stray flick of Sakura's magic, but Fai didn't want to cause the princess any more distress tonight. She had obviously suffered enough already.

Eventually, she and Syaoran separated long enough for Fai to feel relatively secure in sending Sakura to bed. "You'll want to get off those feet for a while," he said. "I'll be there with the first-aid kit in a moment."

As he spoke, Syaoran's eyes flashed to Sakura's lacerated feet. "You're hurt."

"I'm okay." Sakura managed a brittle smile, which eased the knot in Fai's chest a little. He'd been more worried about her mental state than her physical wounds; she'd been acting erratically since she'd woken up. And after seeing the field of influence she'd projected in the lobby, his worry had turned to dread. _She shouldn't be advancing so quickly, _he'd thought. _Her body won't be able to tolerate the transition. _

It had been luck that had kept Sakura from accidentally butchering all three of them right there in the lobby. Fai would have to speak with her, tell her not to use her magic for a while. Trauma unlocked doors in the mind. In magic-users, those doors tended to hide rooms where the mind cared nothing for the limits of the body. She'd already have sustained some damage from calling forth too much magic at once, though nothing irreversible. Until her body adjusted to the power her mind had brushed up against, however, he would have to carefully monitor her magic use.

"Syaoran-kun, you should go to bed yourself."

"But she just got back," the boy objected. "Can't I do something for her?"

Fai shook his head. "I know it's hard, but sometimes the best thing for a person after a rough day is to give them space. I'm sure she'll be up to more tomorrow, but for now, we shouldn't overwhelm her. Besides, you have the hoverboarding tournament tomorrow afternoon. Get some rest."

The boy hesitated, glancing at Kurogane. _Looking for support, _Fai thought, eyes sliding toward the ninja. Kurogane shrugged. "The mage is right. Go to sleep. You won't be any help in the race if you're exhausted."

Outvoted, Syaoran shuffled to his room, taking Mokona with him.

Alone with Kurogane, Fai braced himself for a confrontation. But though the ninja looked at him for a long moment, he said nothing about Fai's behavior—which, upon reflection, had been somewhat suspect. _Wonderful, _he thought. _Now he thinks I'm a liar _and _crazy. _

"Go take care of the princess," Kurogane said, crossing his arms.

Fai's eyes widened in surprise. He forced a smile. "No comments on how erratic I've been all evening?"

"Mage, tonight was the first time I've seen you being sincere about anything. So no, I'm not going to complain about it. Besides," his eyes flickered to the princess's room, "we've got more important things to worry about."

"That we do," Fai agreed, turning somber. "I'd better go take a look at her feet. The last thing we need is for her to develop an infection on a journey like this." He headed into the bathroom to retrieve the first-aid kit, then knocked on Sakura's door.

"Come in."

He pressed the button beside the door to open it, then glided inside, setting the first-aid kit on the table beside Sakura's bed. She'd already changed into a pair of pajamas, leaving her feet bare. "Let's take care of those cuts, shall we?" he said, kneeling at her bedside and producing a cotton ball from the box. He dabbed a bit of antiseptic on it—he'd asked Syaoran to read him the labels on all the medical supplies when they'd purchased them their first day here, then memorized the effects of each different type of medicine so he could treat minor wounds.

Sakura wiggled her toes as he pressed the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball against one of her cuts. "That stings."

Fai gave her a rueful look. "It will feel better in a bit." Carefully, he cleaned each laceration, occasionally picking tiny shards of glass from the wounds. Sakura tolerated the treatment without complaint, and he wondered, not for the first time, what had been done to her. "All right. The worst is over." He set the cotton balls aside and produced a roll of gauze. "Now we just have to wrap your feet so we don't introduce any foreign germs into the wounds."

Sakura gave a quiet hum of assent, but didn't otherwise react as he started binding her feet. Since she didn't seem inclined to share anything that had happened tonight, Fai decided to voice the concerns that had been plaguing his mind since her display in the lobby. "Your magic seems to have improved quite a lot lately."

She said nothing.

"That's not unusual, in this situation." _Not unusual for a budding magician to display exceptional power after a traumatic event. _"But I fear your progress might be coming along a little _too _quickly."

"What do you mean?" she asked. Though her voice was quiet, he heard the echo of curiosity there. Whatever had happened had obviously disturbed her, but she was young enough yet to be distracted, to heal.

"You see, when a magician becomes too powerful too quickly, it damages their body. Not significantly—at least not right away—but if that magician pushes themselves too hard for too long, they start to break. Emotional trauma, in particular, can bring about an abrupt boost in one's magical power." He felt her foot stiffen under the bandages and retreated into less dangerous territory. "You don't have to tell me anything. I'm always here to listen, but it's up to you how much or how little you wish to share. But first and foremost, I have to ask you not to use your magic for the next few days."

"Why so long?"

"Let's just say it would be dangerous, both to you and to anyone around you, if you were to draw on your magic too much before you're ready. Your body will require a few days to adjust to the new level of power, and then we can continue your lessons. It's no different than if you'd sprained your wrist and couldn't practice your archery. Your body needs time to heal, and then you can go back to practicing. All right?"

"What about the race tomorrow?"

Fai frowned, puzzled. "What about it?"

"Well, I . . . I mean, it's obvious that none of us are ready. Kurogane and Syaoran are much better at hoverboarding than I am, but even they can't match up against . . . the more experienced teams."

_There's something there, _Fai thought. _Whatever happened tonight, it ties into the race somehow. _He would have to speak to Kurogane about that. Fai wouldn't be racing himself. He hadn't attended any practice sessions with the rest of the group, either, so he didn't know what to make of her hesitation, other than that it related to whatever had traumatized her.

"I know it's not right," Sakura went on. "But with me on the team . . . The only way I'd have a chance of keeping up with the rest of the competitors would be if I used my magic, even if I'm still not very good at it. I don't see how we can win Syaoran's feather if I don't."

Fai tried to smile. It didn't bother him that Sakura had considered using her magic to cheat—honestly, a day ago, he'd have doubted she could summon enough power to influence her hoverboarding in any noticeable way—but he couldn't allow her to use any magic until he was sure her body had adapted to the power that had awakened within her tonight. In a few days, perhaps, they could move on to more advanced magic—now that she'd gained more power, it would stay with her, no matter how long she went without using it—but it wouldn't be safe for her to use it during tomorrow's race.

"A good man once told me that most people think themselves less skilled than everyone else thinks they are," he said. "You may _think_ you can't win, but you've learned so much and become so much more agile that I'm sure you have more of a chance than you think."

"You must have thought very highly of this person," Sakura said. "Who was he?"

Fai hesitated, debating how much he could tell her without revealing secrets he desperately needed to keep. _It will look suspicious if I refuse to answer, _he thought, frustrated. "He was . . . my king."

Her eyes widened. "You were friends with a _king_?"

Fai grinned; the expression was only slightly forced. "Why not? I'm also friends with a princess, after all."

For the first time since they'd found her, enthusiasm brightened her eyes. "But that's amazing, Fai-san. You must be part of the nobility."

_I was a prince, _Fai thought, feeling as if he'd swallowed a ball of ice. "Not technically, no. You could say I was . . . adopted into the nobility. Ashura was my . . . foster father, you could say. It's not important," he added, then paused when he saw that her face had frozen, mouth open slightly, lower lip trembling. "Sakura-chan, are you all right?"

"Did you say . . . Ashura? As in, King Ashura?"

The ice in his stomach grew colder. "Is that important?" he asked, a ghost of a smile on his face.

"Oh, Fai-san, I . . ." Sakura drew back, curling in on herself so her knees pressed against her chest. Her eyes shone with terror. "I had a dream about Ashura. He . . . He did terrible things, Fai-san."

His heart had leaped into his throat. _Damage control, _whispered the more logical part of his mind. _Have to keep the secret. No other way. It's either her memory or her life. _"When did you have this dream?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Just a little while ago, after I fainted in the street. Fai-san, you have to believe me. That man . . . he told me it was dangerous to wander through dreams, and when I said that I had to learn, he brought me to an empty village. The houses had _burned_, Fai-san, and the p-people . . ."

For the first time since sending himself to Yuuko's shop, Fai drew on his magic. It stirred, a living thing beating against the bars of its cage. _Damage control._ Sakura couldn't know about Ashura, couldn't know about _him._ Too dangerous. Yet he didn't dare kill her, not with Kurogane waiting in the living room, not with Syaoran sleeping just next door. _What am I even thinking? Of course I can't kill her. She's too important to the mission. I could try to alter her memory, but what if she starts to wonder about the gaps? What if she crosses paths with Ashura in another dream? I won't be able to scrub every trace of him from her memories._

"Perhaps the Ashura that you met was the king of a different dimension," he found himself saying. _Yes, that will work, she will believe the lie, yes . . . _"It only makes sense. After all, they would have been born of the same soul, and it stands to reason that they might occupy a similar station, even if they come from different worlds."

Sakura paused, still pale, shaky. "I . . ."

"Really, it's all very logical," Fai went on, as if emphasizing that logic would make the lie more believable. He had learned from experience that if a person heard the same thing often enough, they would begin to believe it. If he could nudge Sakura into thinking it was possible for there to be two Ashuras who not only shared the same soul, but also the same station despite coming from different dimensions, then she would internalize that lie until it was as realistic to her as the truth.

"I . . . suppose that makes sense," Sakura said in a small voice.

Fai smiled wider, relieved. "Don't worry too much about it, Sakura-chan. I've heard dreamwalking is unsettling, but as far as I know, it's not dangerous. Not that I've ever had that talent for myself. But dreams are still dreams, even when they're something more. They can frighten you, but they can't hurt you. Not in the real world."

Sakura held his gaze for a long moment, then relaxed slightly. "Okay."

Fai packed the leftover supplies in the first-aid kit and stood. "Let me know if you need anything else, all right? And don't be afraid to come to me—to any of us—if you decide you want to talk about anything."

She nodded, drawing her sheets around herself as she laid down. "Thank you, Fai-san. I'll remember that. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Sakura-chan." He shut off the lights. "Sweet dreams."


	50. Lies and Truths

Chapter Fifty

Fai had lied to her.

Sakura stared at the wall, bedsheets draped over her body. Every muscle ached from her hours of wandering, her escape from Shougo and his friends, her days spent practicing her hoverboarding. Her heart ached most of all, from far too many things to count. Today, she'd lost the last precious shards of innocence and trust she'd clung to after leaving Clow with Syaoran, and with that lost had come a strange sense of clarity. She _knew _Fai was lying to her, knew it because she had sensed the ripple of magic around him when she'd told him of her dream, because he had insisted that the mad king who had tortured her in that nightmare was different from the king who shared his name, the king Fai had claimed to admire. She knew Fai was lying because the same things that had broken in her today were somehow broken in him, too.

_What if he and Ashura are working together?_ she wondered, heartsick for even considering it. _What if this is all some plot to assassinate me, or capture the rest of us? Would Fai really be able to lie to all of us for so long without anyone noticing? _It occurred to her that her other companions had noticed and elected not to say anything. Or perhaps they'd thought they had no way to prove their suspicions, just as she had no definitive proof of her own. _Kurogane must have noticed, _she thought, closing her eyes for a moment. _He acts so coldly to Fai. He must know something isn't right. _

Thinking that one of the few people she'd believed she could trust could be lying to her was unsettling, but she had learned some hard things about trust from her experience with Shougo. She'd believed he'd had good intentions when he'd expressed an interest in teaching her hoverboarding. And then he'd had one of his friends drug her so she could be confined to a small room until the end of the tournament. It wasn't so hard to believe, then, that Fai had only pretended to be on her side. Not hard to believe. Just terrifying.

Beyond her bedroom door, she heard Fai announce that he was going to bed. Her body stiffened, a sob catching in her throat before she forced it back. She felt so tired, but she couldn't sleep, couldn't even close her eyes without having all of today's nightmares dance on the backs of her eyelids.

She waited. Fai's door opened, then closed. Minutes passed. Ten, fifteen, twenty. Would Fai be asleep yet, or would he be tossing in his bed, wondering if his lies had been good enough to convince her? Did someone who lied so often lose sleep over their deceptions?

Half an hour passed, and all the while, she listened for signs that Fai might still be awake, but also listening for signs that Kurogane was about to go to sleep. She wanted to speak with him, which she guessed would go over better if she didn't have to wake him up to do it.

When she was reasonably certain that Fai wouldn't be getting up and moving around, she slid out of bed and tiptoed over to her door, wincing as every step put pressure on her bandaged feet. She pressed the button by her door to open it, flinching at the mechanical whir it made as it receded into the wall. She left it open, not wanting to risk another noise, and headed to the living room.

Kurogane looked up as she entered, setting down the thin book he'd been paging through so that it laid with its spine facing up, pages open to where he'd left off. Sakura paused at the mouth of the hallway, then grabbed a slip of paper—a receipt, she thought—and slid it neatly into the book. "Syaoran-kun would have a fit if he saw you leave a book like that," she said quietly, riffling through the pages. It appeared to be some sort of graphic novel. "I didn't know you could read this world's language."

Kurogane shrugged. "The pictures tell the story just fine. The words aren't important." He paused, regarding her. He wore the flashy, synthetic suit that had come with their hoverboard—protective gear, according to the label Syaoran had read for them—but he had his home-world's helmet in his lap, a hard black shell that would protect him from all but the most powerful blows. "You all right?" he asked.

_No. _"I wanted to talk to you about something."

He nodded, shifting over so she could sit down. She took a seat next to him, staring at the table in front of them. Could she trust Kurogane? He seemed too abrasive, too easily annoyed by propriety and social conventions to make a good manipulator. Was that deliberate? Were he and Fai working together somehow, pretending to fight like vipers while secretly scheming against her? That seemed unlikely. That, or Kurogane was a far better actor than she'd given him credit for. _You have to talk to someone, _she told herself. _Syaoran would be safer to talk to, but he's still missing so many of his memories. You can't add another worry on top of what he's already dealing with._

Kurogane sighed. "If you've got something to say, then say it."

"I think Fai-san has been lying to us."

If her chosen topic surprised the ninja, he gave no sign. "Okay. Why?"

"It's just . . . I have dreams," she said quickly. "Not regular dreams, but . . . I see other places, other worlds. Sometimes I see inside other people's dreams. I saw into one of your dreams once." She saw him stiffen, then looked away. "Nothing . . . nothing too important, I don't think. You were fighting demons with . . . with another version of that woman at the bakery," she realized.

"Souma," Kurogane said flatly. "Her name is Souma. And you're a yumemi. A dreamseer."

She nodded. "I met Tomoyo. She told me a little about what I could do, but we didn't have much time together before she had to wake up. I think she was checking up on you, watching your dreams."

"She always _was _nosy," Kurogane grumbled. "What's that got to do with the mage?"

"Earlier today, before I woke up in the bakery, I met another dreamseer. King Ashura." She watched his face carefully for any signs of recognition, but his red eyes didn't so much as flicker. "He . . . He did horrible things. He killed people, burned villages, or . . . or maybe he just let those things happen. I don't know. But he seemed . . . broken somehow. In the mind."

"Yeah?"

"He had control over the dream. I don't know how; he must be more powerful than I am, or more skilled. He wanted to show me how dangerous it was to walk through dreams without knowing how, and he . . ." She pressed her lips together, heat flooding her eyes. Her next breath trembled. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "That part doesn't matter."

"He hurt you." Anger hummed beneath the words.

Her breath caught. After a long moment, she nodded. "I couldn't get out," she whispered. "I tried—Tomoyo told me that all I had to do to escape a bad dream was to ask to be let out, but it didn't _work, _and I . . . After, when Fai-san was bandaging the cuts on my foot, he said something."

Something flickered in Kurogane's eyes. "What did he say?"

"He was quoting his . . . adoptive father—that was how he referred to him. The king of his country." She paused, organizing her thoughts. "He was talking about him a little, and then he said a name—Ashura. King Ashura. The person in my dream. And I . . . I told him about what I'd seen, but he said that the Ashura I met had to be a _different _King Ashura. But that doesn't make _sense_. Not when all the alternate versions of people we've met through these worlds come from different walks of life. The Souma I met in the bakery after I woke up was different from the Souma you knew, and we've met an alternate version of my brother, and he wasn't royalty in that world. I know there may be many versions of this Ashura, but how many of them could be _kings_? And what are the odds . . ." She trailed off, wiping her eyes. "What are the odds that the king I met and the one Fai knows are two different people? It just doesn't make sense."

A pregnant silence hung in the air between them. Kurogane leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and glaring at the table. After a long moment, he closed his eyes. "That idiot has too many goddamn secrets," he said at last.

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. "I don't know why Fai-san would lie about something like this, unless maybe he doesn't know. And what if he really _doesn't_? I'm sitting here, thinking he must be lying, but what if he really doesn't know that his king is a monster?"

"The idiot's too smart to miss something like that. He'd know something was up." Kurogane opened his eyes and looked at her. "I don't have any answers for you. I don't know whether that king is the person he's been running from, or if he's acting on some sort of twisted sense of loyalty. Tomoyo would be the person to ask, if you see her again. She knows a lot of other yumemi."

Sakura looked down, nodding absently. Even if Kurogane had no answers, just being able to talk to him about her own worries had reassured her.

"None of what you just said explains where you were before you passed out," Kurogane said. She waited for him to say more, to accuse her of getting herself into danger, to demand to know what she'd done and where she'd been. Instead, he waited, still and silent, and as the minutes passed, her resolve crumbled.

She told him everything. About how she'd disguised herself so they wouldn't notice her when she returned to the hoverpark to ask for Shougo's help. How she'd only realized she'd been drugged moments before she'd passed out on the sidewalk. How she'd woken up to find herself in a cramped room, trapped and alone and so desperate that she'd actually convinced herself that Shougo had come to _save _her when he'd arrived outside her door.

Then the harder things. How she'd gotten out of her cell. How she'd removed her shoes so that her footsteps would be quiet in the tiled hallway. How Shougo and his friends had found her anyway. How she had escaped by flinging Shougo's own knife back toward his face. She cried at that part, the silent weeping of someone too shell-shocked to sob.

"It was horrible," she said at last, her voice wavering. "I don't even know if he's still alive or not." She bowed her head, waiting for Kurogane to declare her a monster.

"You were very brave," he said instead.

"I . . . No, I . . ."

"I know it doesn't feel that way. The first time you take a life . . . Well, the first time _I _took one was intentional, and I figure that makes it easier, but it's still hard. Not knowing is worse. But your life was in danger and you had every right to protect it. Remember that."

"It was hard for you? The first time you . . . killed?"

"It gets easier" was all he said.

_I hope it does, _she thought, wiping her eyes. _I really hope it does._


	51. No Distractions

Chapter Fifty-One

"Good morning, Sakura-chan," Fai said as she shuffled into the living room. The smell of pancake batter and syrup hung thick in the air, and in spite of everything that had happened the previous day, despite the things she suspected about Fai, Sakura paused at the end of the hallway and inhaled, the corners of her lips pulling up into a smile.

"Good morning," she said, tiptoeing over to the kitchen table. The medicine Fai had applied to the cuts on her feet had done wonders, but her wounds still stung when she walked on them. "We're having pancakes?"

"I wanted to make something sweet, considering . . ." He trailed off, his smile dimming. "Well. It will be a few minutes before they're ready. Syaoran-kun is still in his room. Would you go wake him up?"

"Sure." She stood, heading back to the bedroom hallway. _Everything seems so normal today, _she thought. _It's almost like a dream. _She paused, suddenly anxious. What if this _was _a dream? What if Ashura had snared her in a trap after she'd fallen asleep? Usually, when she started dreamwalking, she became aware of it immediately, but she'd still only had a handful of dreams. What did she know of how it was supposed to work?

"Let me out," she whispered, closing her eyes. "If this is a dream, let me out."

Nothing happened. Tomoyo had told her that all she needed to do to escape someone's dream was to ask to be let out, but it hadn't worked when Ashura had controlled her dream. Which either meant that someone was controlling it now, or . . . or she was really awake. _If it's a dream, something strange will happen soon. I'll be able to tell the difference. Even if I can't, I'll eventually wake up._

_ I can't let fear keep me from doing what I need to do. _

Resolved, she knocked on Syaoran's door. "It's time for breakfast."

"Coming," Syaoran called from within, voice muffled. The door slid open a moment later, revealing Syaoran in his hoverboarding gear. "Good morning, Sakura."

Her heart gave a little _thump _at the way he said her name. "Good morning." She studied his face, looking for lines of fatigue or injury. Syaoran had always struggled with admitting when he was hurt, and while she had no reason to believe he was, she'd become so used to checking that she did it automatically. He wasn't wounded, but his eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. _As much as I worry about him, he's got even more reason to be worried about me after last night. It's no wonder he didn't sleep well. _

As a door hissed open behind her, she jumped, twirling around. Kurogane stepped out of the room he shared with Fai, his spiky hair in disarray, his expression irritated.

"Good morning, Kurogane-sensei," Syaoran said quickly, bowing.

"You don't have to bow every time you see me. We're not training right now." The ninja turned his attention to Sakura. "You all right?"

Her eyes widened. _I didn't think he cared enough to ask. _"I . . . Yes. Much better than I was last night. Thank you."

Kurogane nodded, apparently considering the conversation over, and headed into the kitchen. Sakura followed, twining her fingers through Syaoran's as they walked. He looked at her, blushing, then squeezed her hand more securely.

"Just in time," Fai said, setting a stack of pancakes in the middle of the table.

"Great. More sweets." Kurogane grabbed a fork, poking at the doughy tower. "There's no way this crap is healthy."

"It was the only breakfast-related thing I could get the autochef to make," Fai said. "It was being uncooperative." He sat, squeezing a puddle of syrup onto his plate before spearing several pancakes with his fork. He glanced at Syaoran. "So, the big race is today. How's practice been going?"

Syaoran hesitated. "We've made a lot of progress."

"It'll take a miracle for us to win," Kurogane said bluntly.

Wincing, Sakura set several pancakes on her plate and began dusting powdered sugar over them. "We have to win. It's the only way to get Syaoran's feather back."

There was a lull in conversation as they started eating. _What if they're right? _she wondered. _What if we don't win? We can't just leave without the feather, but what else can we do? Steal it? _She didn't think she'd have had a problem with that if she were stealing it from Shougo's team, but with what she'd done last night, they were almost certainly out of the race. There were no substitutions allowed, and even if she hadn't killed Shougo—something she still wasn't convinced of—he wouldn't likely be well enough to hoverboard.

"We'll figure something out," Kurogane said at last. "Anything that gets us to the next world faster is fine by me."

"Still thinking about home, Kuro-pyon?"

"If you don't quit it with the names . . ." Kurogane growled, a threat implicit in his voice.

They finished breakfast. Afterward, Sakura returned to her room to don her hoverboarding gear. _Today's the day, _she thought, sliding her goggles over her eyes. _No more distractions. _She headed back to the living room. The others were already waiting for her, Kurogane and Syaoran in their protective suits, Fai in a neon-orange shirt with blue trim. "Shall we get going?" he asked.

_No more distractions, _she repeated mentally, forcing aside her suspicions. "Let's go."

They headed downstairs and outside, bypassing the hoverpark they'd visited so frequently these past few days. She found herself wishing she'd had more time to practice, wishing they'd been able to get a hoverboard sooner. Even doing her best to remain optimistic, she knew their chances weren't good. Maybe they _would _have to steal the feather after the race.

To get to the racetrack, they had to take a train—one piece of technology that Sakura was actually familiar with, although this one traveled much, much faster than any she'd seen in Clow. Syaoran wove a story about a time when he'd been riding a train with his father to some distant country and been delayed because a herd of sheep had decided to huddle on the tracks. Sakura listened with rapt attention, cherishing this moment. When Syaoran talked about his memories, it was often to comment about the holes in them—the gaps where _she _should have been, where her presence had been removed with surgical precision by Yuuko's price.

Hearing him talk about a memory that was neither negative nor filled with gaps reminded her why she was really doing this. She wanted him to be happy and fulfilled, free from the prison of his amnesia because _this _wasn't about her; it was about him being as whole as he could possibly be, even if . . . even if she'd never be a part of those memories again. So she laughed in all the right places and smiled when he did, and in doing so, she began to feel like herself again.

Eventually, though, the train ride came to an end. They arrived at their stop shortly after Syaoran finished his story and stepped back into the industrialized world they'd fallen into a few weeks ago. "Looks like people are already registering," Syaoran said, pointing to a booth where several teams of hoverboarders busily signed papers and had their hands stamped so they could pass through the various security checkpoints. Sakura got in line, Kurogane and Syaoran right behind her.

"I'm going to go get a spot in the stands," Fai told them, waving. "Good luck!"

"Thanks!" Syaoran called back.

"Stay out of trouble," Kurogane said.

Sakura stayed quiet. _No distractions. _

"You seem tense," Syaoran said once they were through the line. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay. Just focused." She ran her fingertips along the edge of their hoverboard, resolute. _We'll win. We have to. _"The rules say we can use the racetrack to practice on the day of the event. We should try to familiarize ourselves with the course while there's time."

"Good idea." Syaoran pointed. "It looks like the starting point is over there."

She nodded, setting the hoverboard down and stepping onto it. After her practice with Primera the previous day, her balance and confidence had improved significantly. _At least some good came of all that, _she thought, swerving from side to side, then executing a hairpin turn. When she swung around, she saw the others staring at her, eyes wide. She blushed, coming to a stop. "Who wants to try first?"

"I'll go," Kurogane said. "I've got faster reflexes than both of you."

She stepped off the board and handed it to him. "Make sure to adjust the dial at the bottom."

"Yeah, yeah." He did so, pausing at the starting line. The track consisted of a shiny black road that rose up and twisted through the air. It had green lights all along the edges, but it was the numerous obstacles that drew her attention. Near the beginning of the track was a labyrinth of walls which lowered and raised themselves seemingly at random. Beyond that, a long ramp which led to a vast open-air segment marked only by a bunch of floating rings. She saw a team that had already started the course make a point of zigzagging through those rings, rather than flying around them, but it seemed to require less agility than the labyrinth did. Some of the hoverboarders added flourishes to their flight, flipping end over end or doing barrel rolls as they maneuvered their way through the course.

She began to feel very, very worried about their chances of winning.

Kurogane made it through the first obstacle all right, though she heard him cursing as he darted out of the way of the walls that shot up in front of him. He did better with the second obstacle, but after that, the track twisted away from her, out of sight. _If I want to find out what's beyond that bend in the path, I'll have to run the course myself. _

"Hey, princess."

Her spine went rigid. She spun, nearly calling on her magic before remembering Fai's warning about overextending herself. Primera stood a few feet away, leaning on her cherry-pink hoverboard and smirking as if nothing had happened yesterday. "What do you want?" Sakura demanded, her voice coming out an octave higher than usual.

"Oh, nothing," Primera said, her voice light. "Wanted to let you know that Shougo's out of the hospital."

_He's alive? _She swayed, a little dizzy. Part of her felt relief—if Shougo was alive, then she wasn't a killer. The other part had gone cold with terror. Shougo was alive. He'd tried to keep her from attending the race, and now he was out of the hospital. Would he be racing today? Or would he simply sabotage her and her team? Or something worse? "That's . . . good to hear," she said, voice thin. _Act normal. _ "Send him my regards."

"What's this all about?" Syaoran stepped closer to her. No, she thought—he stepped slightly in_ front _of her, feet shoulder-width apart, body tensed to spring. Kurogane had been teaching him how to fight, and he'd already been good at it before he'd lost his memories. Did he think he could protect her? _Could _he protect her?

"Just checking up on the competition," Primera said, but her smile was gone. She looked at Sakura. "There's a tough stretch of obstacles in the last third of the race. Might be too much for your skill level. You should probably have one of your teammates run it instead."

_Why is she helping me? _Sakura wondered, eyebrows pulling together. _Is she trying to trick me somehow, making me think the third section of the race is more dangerous when it's really one of the other sections I should be worried about? Or is she being honest? Does she feel guilty about what she and her teammates did to me? She must have been in on it—she was there—but she wasn't the one who drugged me, and she didn't make up the plan. _Sakura frowned. Primera had actually had a perfect opportunity to take her down, right as she'd been desperately fleeing from Shougo. But instead of grabbing her, Primera had stepped to the side and allowed her to pass. She'd still ended up getting pinned and nearly killed by Shougo, but . . .

"Seriously, princess," Primera said, lowering her voice. All traces of levity had vanished from her expression. "If you're going to insist on racing today, don't pick the last section. You'll crash and burn."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't have to listen to you."

"Sakura, what's going on?" Syaoran asked.

"Nothing," she said. The last thing she wanted to do now was make Syaoran worry about potential sabotage. "Thank you for the advice, Primera, but I will participate in whichever segment of the race I see fit."

Primera's eyes narrowed. She dropped her hoverboard and stepped onto it. "Try not to die, all right? It would ruin the fun." She zipped off, heading for the stands.

Syaoran turned, meeting Sakura's eyes. "Was she . . . Was she the person who hurt you yesterday?"

"No." It was a truth that bordered on a lie, and she felt a twinge of guilt even as she contemplated her options. _It was my choice to go on this journey. If the third leg of the race really is the most dangerous, then it's only right that I be the one to take it on. _

Kurogane finished his circuit around the track, returning with the hoverboard. "You want a rundown of what's out there, or are you just going to go?" he asked her.

She took the board from his hands. "I want to see it for myself." _I have to learn not to let fear or uncertainty keep me from doing what I need to do. _

"Be careful," the ninja said. "Don't worry about speed this time around—worry about making it through the obstacles without crashing."

"Okay." She stepped onto the hoverboard, tilting her head back to look at the course. _No distractions. _

She leaned forward and glided onto the track.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes:<em>

_Today, I have made the most wonderful discovery. "What sort of discovery?" you might ask, and my answer is that I have discovered that one of my greatest dreams has come true. Dear readers, today I have discovered that this story (along with_ Shatterheart) _now has its own page on TV Tropes._

_To explain more fully, TV Tropes is a wiki, edited by thousands of anonymous readers, which details the tropes (defined as "devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations") present in various media. It is a massive resource for budding writers who want to become more aware of their audience's expectations, as well as a great place for fans of a work to get more information. Of particular note, TV Tropes houses countless pages dedicated to naming the tropes in TV shows, books, comics, anime/manga, and even well-received fanworks. _

_With all this in mind, I think you can understand what an honor it is to find that not one, but_ two _of my stories, now have their own pages on the TV Tropes wiki. To know that someone out there considers my work to be worth the time it takes to create a page dedicated to it is, quite literally, the most profound gift I have ever received in my journey as a writer. As I do not know who created this page, and thus cannot thank them personally, I wish to express my gratitude here:_

_It is because of readers like you that I can wake up every day and believe my writing has a place in this world. It is because of readers like you that I can honestly say that I have had one of my most precious dreams come true. And it is because of readers like you that I will continue to pursue the rest of my dreams. It is not often that I can say I am inspired. Most of the time, writing is drudgery, a chore to be endured in the hopes that I might catch one tiny spark of inspiration that every artist, writer, musician, or other creative mind seeks to touch when they take their instrument of choice in hand. But I will say it now: You have inspired me. You, the person who created pages on TV Tropes for my work, and also _you, _the readers who have supported and followed my work, be it in the form of reviews or just by being here for every new chapter__. You are all brilliant and amazing, and it is people like you who make dreams come true._


	52. Practice Runs

Chapter Fifty-Two

The walls changed around her.

Sakura swerved, avoiding a collision as a wall sprang up in front of her. This forced her to turn sharply to maneuver through the L-shaped corridor to her left, which she narrowly escaped when a section of the wall opened up before she hit a dead-end. Even taking her time, it was a miracle she didn't crash.

_This, _she thought, _is definitely not the part of the race I'd excel at. _She surged through another opening, coming out at the next part of the track. Her hoverboard hummed underneath her, picking up speed as she leaned forward. The next obstacle was a massive ramp which led to a series of rings she'd have to fly through. After that was a mystery—she hadn't been able to see the rest of the track yet.

She leaned back, moving with the slope of the hill and picking up speed. When she reached the end of the ramp, she flew through the air, sailing toward the floating rings between this section of the path and the next. As wide in diameter as she was tall, they posed little challenge—though she had Primera's training about hairpin turns to help. Without that, her mid-air twists would have been clumsy and slow.

_Now for the next part of the race, _she thought, eyes narrowed in focus. She skimmed over the curving section of track, keeping her body compact to lower wind resistance. Ahead, she caught sight of a series of swinging pendulums, all of which moved at different speeds as they threatened to knock hoverboarders off the track.

A pair of hoverboarders came up behind her, zipping past at twice her speed. Curious, she slowed, watching them dart through the obstacle. When one of the pendulums caught the man in the chest, he tumbled through the air, hitting the flexible net on the side of the obstacle. _At least getting knocked off the track doesn't mean dying, _she thought, gliding closer. Kurogane had cautioned her to take her time—and if _he _was being cautious, then she had good reason to do the same.

The pendulums proved more of a challenge than expected. While she avoided the first two easily, the second swung at a faster speed, and in her haste, she misjudged it, only avoiding a hard hit by inches. As it was, the padded pendulum hit the tail end of her hoverboard and sent her twirling through the air. It was pure luck that she made it past the next two pendulums. She swerved to avoid the one after, but had to slow to avoid crashing head-on into the next. Still, she made it through without getting hurt and passed over a line of bright green lights embedded in the track. Ahead of her, the lights flickered, displaying a message: First section complete. Switch off with your next teammate.

A few teams had already started practicing the relay part of the race. She watched people who made it through the first leg of the race stop sharply, then hand their hoverboards off to their teammates before ducking into the pit off to the side so they wouldn't get hit. Even moving fast, a few racers almost collided with people as they left the track.

Since Syaoran and Kurogane were still waiting at the first part of the track, Sakura continued on. The next leg of the race looked deceptively simple. The track twisted, rose, and dipped, but contained no apparent obstacles. It was the part of the course made for speed, and as other races flew by, Sakura felt the pressure to move faster. She leaned forward as far as she dared, wind buffeting her face. Even at her fastest, people still hurtled by. _We're not going to gain any advantages by having me do this part of the race, _she thought, shooting up a hill, then sharply downward again.

Still, this section of the track didn't seem _too _dangerous. She would have to insist that Syaoran take this section—even if he insisted on racing, he was still missing a lot of his memories, a lot of _himself_. She didn't want to put him in any more danger than was absolutely necessary.

_Then again, if what Primera told me is some sort of trick . . . _She shook her head, still unsure what to think of Primera. On one hand, she was a part of Shougo's team, but on the other . . . It had looked almost purposeful when she'd jumped out of Sakura's way when she'd been fleeing from Shougo. As if Primera had wanted her to escape. And even though Primera hadn't been in any way injured or incapacitated, she hadn't bothered to give chase after that moment.

Up ahead, the track twisted. Sakura moved, tilting her body as she swooped along the curve. She'd finished the second section without much difficulty, but she could see the next switching point, and beyond that, the next set of obstacles: a series of holes in the track, each of which released geysers of steam as people passed over them. She watched several racers get thrown high into the air by the steam-jets, their hoverboards spinning out of control and—more often than not—separating from their riders altogether. _Apparently the safety features on these things aren't good enough to stand up against that kind of impact._

As with the pendulums, she weaved slowly above the track, trying to avoid flying directly over the holes. This part of the course seemed to be more about luck than skill—the vents erupted seemingly at random. _It will take a lot of luck for us to even have a chance, _she thought. _But at least if I fail at this section, it won't be because I'm awful at hoverboarding. _

A column of steam roared up from one of the holes to her left, and the rush of air nearly knocked her off her hoverboard. She managed to right herself in time to swerve out of the way as steam burst out of the hole in front of her. Despite a few close calls, she made it through the obstacle without getting thrown from her perch. _Luck, _she thought, shaking her head. _We're going to have to rely on luck. _

The track had made a long loop, and shortly after escaping the steam-jets, she turned a corner and found Syaoran and Kurogane standing near the line that marked both the start and finish point.

"How did it go?" Kurogane asked.

Sakura stepped off the hoverboard, wobbling on unsteady feet. "It was . . . challenging. Do either of you have any preferences for which part of the race you want to take?"

Syaoran brightened. "I've been analyzing the movements of the first set of obstacles. There's a pattern to the way the walls move, and I think if I can run through it a few more times, I should be able to memorize it. The pendulums are even easier, since they all move at a set speed and adopt a predictable pattern."

She deflated a little; she'd hoped Syaoran would take the middle section, where the track was mostly devoid of hazards. But if he'd already figured out how to navigate the obstacles in the first third of the race, he'd probably make it through safely. "All right. And you?" She glanced at Kurogane.

"Doesn't matter to me."

"Then would it be all right if I took the third section?"

Surprise flickered across his face, disappearing in an instant. "If you want."

_One problem dealt with, _she thought. _Now to practice for the race itself. _"In that case, we should head to our individual starting points. Syaoran, will you wait here for a few minutes so Kurogane and I can get to our starting positions?"

"Of course," he said with an easy smile.

"Okay. Let's go." With Kurogane at her side, she marched off, walking in the shadows beneath the track. It took longer than she expected to make it to Kurogane's starting point—to get there, they had to go around countless concessions stands and fences—but the abundance of other racers made it quite obvious they were at the right place.

"You heading off?" Kurogane asked, nodding in the general direction of _her _starting point.

"Yes." She hesitated, feeling like she ought to say something more. As a princess, she'd been raised to be polite, personable, and—to an extent—effusive when greeting someone or bidding them farewell. Add to that the numerous titles and political ties of those she'd interacted with in Clow's royal court, and her curt response seemed rude.

But of course, she was beginning to understand exactly how little Kurogane cared for unnecessary chatter, so she left him there, hurrying to her own starting point. When she reached it, she found a set of metal steps—no railing—leading up to the edge of the track. Other racers stood on the track, and as she climbed up the last flight of stairs, she saw one of the racers from the second leg of the race jump off their hoverboard, grab it in midair, and pass it off to their teammate, who jumped on and took off. The hoverboard itself never came to a complete stop.

_Syaoran has probably already started on his part of the race, _she thought, glancing over her shoulder. She could see most of the course from up here, though it was hard to tell any of the distant racers apart as they glided along their route. She stepped onto the track, then froze as she saw a familiar racing suit a few meters away. Shougo.

"Well, hello there princess," he called. A plain black eye-patch covered half his face, and when he smiled, little knives of fear slammed into her chest.

_Don't act frightened, _she told herself. _No one else knows that you're the reason he's missing an eye, and he can't do anything in front of so many witnesses. _She took a deep breath, tilting her chin up. "What happened to your eye?" she asked innocently, trying to ignore the curious glances the other racers were giving her.

"I had a little accident." Dark humor glittered in his remaining eye. "But I suppose you don't want to hear all the gory details."

_He's mocking me, _she realized, shocked. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she barely mustered up enough bravado to disguise the growing terror in her voice."You should be more careful, otherwise something worse might happen."

The amusement vanished, leaving his smile hollow, bitter. "So I take it you've decided to take this part of the relay," he said coolly, changing the subject. "It looks like you and I will be racing side-by-side."

"So it seems."

His expression chilled even further. "Well, I look forward to it."

Kyle—the man who'd drugged her so that Shougo could kidnap and imprison her—arrived at that moment, passing his board off to Shougo. With a final, empty grin, Shougo took off, sailing like an arrow above the track.

Sakura let out a breath. _No distractions, _she thought. _We have to win this race. And then we'll leave this world, and I'll never have to see Shougo or Kyle again. _


	53. Minutes

Chapter Fifty-Three

The race was set to begin at four in the afternoon.

At three-fifty-five, Sakura stood at her starting point, idly running her fingers across one of several scabs she'd acquired during today's practice. Every part of her skin not covered with clothing had instead been wrapped in bandages, save for her face and neck, which only bore a handful of exposed scrapes and bruises.

At three-fifty-six, one of the attendants stepped onto the track, asking if anyone had any questions or concerns before the race began. Surreptitiously, Sakura turned to look at Shougo, searching for some flicker of emotion, something that might indicate he was up to something, but his face remained utterly impassive.

By three-fifty-seven, all the racers were in place. Sakura scanned the track, searching for Syaoran and Kurogane, but the course was too vast, and even knowing they were at their starting points, she couldn't pick them out at this distance.

At three-fifty-eight, Sakura felt someone watching her. At first, she tried to ignore it, but to do so was like trying to ignore a pebble in her shoe. At first, it was annoying. Then it became difficult to shunt aside. Then the presence of it overshadowed every corner of her mind. Her eyes flickered to Shougo, but he was absorbed in preparation, making sure his shoes were strapped tightly. None of the other racers seemed to be watching her either. But the sensation of watching eyes didn't relent, and after half a minute, she decided to try that trick Fai had taught her to ward against scrying. She visualized a curtain around her mind, thick and opaque. If someone was watching her using magic, merely visualizing a barrier would shield her from their view, or so Fai had said.

For a moment, something resisted, as if someone was trying to force their way through the curtain. In the physical plane, it would have been a simple matter, but magic existed in each layer of reality—physical, cognitive, and spiritual—and so a defense that would have been flimsy in the physical plane was as unyielding as steel in the cognitive realm. Fai had taught her about the three layers of reality early in their lessons, and while she didn't have any in-depth knowledge of those layers, she knew enough to recognize which one she was hiding in.

The force pressing up against her mental curtain retreated after a few seconds. Sakura released her hold on the image. It was only effective so long as she held it in her mind, but she needed to focus. The time display read three-fifty-nine now. One minute until the race began. Sakura inhaled, then exhaled.

Beside her, Shougo finished fiddling with his boots and stood, looming over her. She looked over reflexively, then cursed herself for showing the slightest hint of apprehension. Shougo regarded her for a moment, eyes cold like steel.

A buzzer went off on the other side of the track, and the race began.

* * *

><p>As a buzzer heralded the beginning of the race, Syaoran leaned forward on his hoverboard and glided toward the first obstacle. The other racers shot ahead, faster and more experienced than he was. In truth, it had been a surprise that he'd picked up hoverboarding so quickly. Syaoran knew, in an abstract way, that he had always been a quick learner, and that he was well-rounded both in terms of skill and temperament, but with only a small portion of his memory intact, he had little evidence to back up his assumptions. As far as he'd discerned, Clow Country wasn't technologically advanced enough to have hoverboards, which meant that he'd never ridden one before arriving in Avantine. Yet with only a few days of practice, he'd become adept at flying one.<p>

Of course, compared to the years of experience of his fellow racers, simply being "adept" wasn't good enough. So he'd been forced to regard the race not only as a participant, but as a scholar. He'd analyzed the patterns within the first obstacle, memorized the possible routes he could take, accounted for the interference of other racers or unusual weather conditions, and synthesized all that data to determine the most expeditious route through the ever-changing maze in front of him.

As a corridor opened up near the front of the maze, Syaoran shot toward it, the back of his hoverboard just clearing the entrance as the wall shot up behind him. Having analyzed the obstacle's movements perfectly, he veered right an instant _before _another corridor opened up, saving himself a quarter of a second and, more importantly, falling into the pattern of movement he'd been practicing all day. Where other racers had to stop or turn back suddenly when their escape routes closed behind them, Syaoran predicted his path without flaw and came out the other side of the maze before anyone else had cleared the obstacle.

He picked up speed, approaching the next obstacle—a set of pendulums meant to knock racers off the track. He'd studied these as well, measuring their approximate speed, but he hadn't understood the higher math required to calculate the ideal route through the pendulums. He _had, _however, labeled each pendulum as slow, moderate, fast, or very fast, which helped him calculate where in the obstacle it was beneficial to take risks. He shot past the first two pendulums with ease, slowed to avoid being hit by the third, which moved more quickly, then shot toward the next set.

As he passed the fourth pendulum, however, he realized something wasn't _quite _right. Instead of shooting by with plenty of space to spare, he felt the wind of the pendulum passing just behind him. It was supposed to be one of the slow ones, meant to lull competitors into a false sense of security before the next few pendulums, which swung rapidly.

By the time he'd processed that something was wrong, he'd made his way past the fifth pendulum and was shooting toward the next set too quickly to reevaluate. He swerved, narrowly avoiding a hit that would have certainly knocked him off the track. Behind him, he heard a handful of others—now out of the maze and catching up—swear as the pendulums clipped their hoverboards. One girl cried out as a pendulum hit her straight-on and flung her into the net beside the track.

Syaoran hesitated, looking back to see if anyone was hurt. In the moment he took his attention away from the next pendulum, it crashed into the front of his board, sending him into a wild spin that wrenched his knees and sent him cartwheeling through the air. If he'd been braced for the impact, things might have gone differently—he might have righted himself, might have stayed on his board. Instead, he whirled through the air, hoverboard shivering against the bottoms of his shoes, and slammed into the ground. The board dislodged itself from his feet, skittering across the track as a handful of other racers passed overhead. Syaoran lifted his head, then lowered it as the movement made pain crackle down his entire body. Had he broken something? Had he cracked his skull? Head and spine injuries made it dangerous to move, but through the haze of adrenaline, he couldn't discern whether he was badly hurt or merely battered.

One thing was clear to him: if he didn't get up, they'd lose the race, lose their chance at retrieving his feather. If he didn't get up, the three weeks they'd spent in this world would be wasted, and it would be his fault for being overconfident.

Body aching, he forced himself to his feet and hobbled over to his hoverboard.

* * *

><p>Something was wrong.<p>

If Kurogane had been more of a scholar, he'd have attributed his tension to a subconscious perception—some change the deepest part of his mind had figured out that his conscious mind was too busy to contemplate. But a scholar would have written it off as a change in the environment, unusual but not worth worrying about. Scholars rarely suspected that someone was deliberately sabotaging them, or that they were in danger despite there being no identifiable threat. Scholars, when faced with a situation they couldn't explain, stopped and picked apart details, looking for evidence to back up what their gut had already decided to worry about.

The problem with scholars was that they did too much _thinking _and not enough _doing._

Kurogane moved to the edge of the track, where several attendants—technicians, judges, whatever—stood, watching to make sure everyone followed the rules as hoverboards changed hands. "Hey," he said, "something's going on down there."

One of the technicians glanced up, pinching the sides of his spectacles. Kurogane could faintly see a display flickering behind the guy's lenses. "Could you be more specific?" he asked lazily.

Kurogane bristled. "Can't you see how many people those damned pendulums have knocked out of the race?"

The man sighed. "As I recall, the point of having obstacles is to eliminate participants too unskilled to win."

_This is going nowhere, _Kurogane thought, seething. He looked over his shoulder. Three people had taken bad hits at the pendulums, landing in the net off to the side. Along the edge of the track, a handful of people in red and white overcoats hustled toward those who had fallen to start administering medical attention. The kid . . .

Where was the kid?

Returning to his starting point, he looked out onto the track. From there, he could see the racers who had made it past the pendulums approaching the switch-point. Near the back of the group was the kid, shoulders hunched, expression twisted in pain. _Idiot, _Kurogane thought, feeling a flare of anger. What was he thinking, continuing after a crash like that? There was a point where persistence became stupidity. Didn't the kid understand that?

_Of course he doesn't. He's missing most of his memories. He's lucky he remembers how to tie his shoes. _

The kid slowed as he got close. "Kurogane-san, something's wrong with the track! The obstacles aren't behaving the way they're supposed to."

"Yeah, I figured that much out." As the kid pulled to a stop, Kurogane grabbed the board and cranked the dial at the base, adjusting it for his weight. "Go find a medic. You're lucky you're still walking." He stepped onto the board and leaned forward, picking up speed. The kid had done well, despite his recklessness, but with the accident, Kurogane had a lot of time to make up.

With no major obstacles, his part of the track was meant to emphasize speed. It was the easiest part of the course, as far as technical skill went, but in a way, that was good for him. He'd never been good with subtlety—if you could fell an opponent with a direct, simple attack instead of some fancy sequence, you were a lot more likely to survive the battle. Here, he only had to focus on one thing: speed.

He hurtled down the track, closing in on the racers ahead. Most were of slighter build than him, which was hardly surprising, considering he'd been taller and broader along his shoulders than most adults by the time he was fifteen. That meant he had more momentum than the other racers, so once he got moving, he began to outpace them. He surged past one, then another, still picking up speed.

He was nearing the middle of the group when the track in front of him exploded.


	54. Flames

_Author's Notes:_

_This chapter covers the same time-frame as the previous chapter, but from different POVs, as there's a lot going on here that only certain characters are going to be able to figure out._

_Also, I'm not much in the habit of hinting at future plot events (mostly because typically if I hint at something, I'll end up changing it, and I don't like to break promises), but I wanted you all to know that one of the reasons chapters have been coming out so sluggishly these past couple months is because I'm really excited about the next story arc (I even outlined something, you guys!) and that excitement is making it difficult to give this story arc the proper weight and quality. But rest assured that this project is very dear to my heart and will not go unfinished, nor will I sacrifice quality for the sake of getting chapters out faster._

* * *

><p>Chapter Fifty-Four<p>

Fai watched the race play out on a row of massive screens as he popped lumps of sour candy into his mouth. For all the culinary difficulties he'd had trying to make their apartment's autochef function these past few weeks, he couldn't help but admire Avantine's confectioneries. This was the third packet of candy he'd eaten, and the sheer variety astounded him. How many hours had been spent working in a stifling kitchen to make candy in bulk like this? Even in the castle in Ceres, sweets were a luxury reserved either for very important people or very important events. The cost of the sugar alone made him wonder how anyone could make a profit off these at the low price they'd been sold for.

_Must be magic, _he decided, holding a gummy lump of lemon-flavored candy and examining it. Of course, if these had been manufactured using magic, there should have been some residual trace of energy for him to discern. Who would go to the trouble of concealing a magical signature on candy, but then sell it so cheaply?

A buzzer went off. Fai licked his lips, watching Syaoran and the rest of the first set of racers take off. Absently, Fai tossed another gummy—orange-flavored—into his mouth. Syaoran had been working so hard to make up for the shortcomings caused by his memory loss, though it would take more time for him to recover fully. Fai could feel the fractures in the boy's magical signature, like cracks in a piece of glass. Granted, Syaoran didn't have much magic—probably not enough to cast a spell, at least not without an attuning object—so his magical signature would have been imperceptible to all but the most sensitive of mages. With a high base magical signature and a lifetime of training, Fai could sense the signatures of any sentient creature, including people who lacked even the slightest glimmer of magical potential. Which made it even stranger that he'd been in this world for three weeks and hadn't encountered any trace of magic except for the faint, ever-present signature of non-mages.

It made him wonder if Mokona's transportation magic had been the first ripple of real magic to touch this world in years. Could the creature be so powerful as to break through the walls of a world not at all attuned to magic? Even he couldn't do that, and he'd traveled between worlds without aid before.

There was another matter. Mokona couldn't possibly be more powerful than him because—

"Is something wrong?"

He jumped, glancing down. Mokona peered up at him, ears flattened plaintively. At once, Fai coaxed his mouth into a goofy smile. "No, not at all. Everything's fine."

Mokona squirmed. "But just now, Fai's eyes became so far away."

He felt a chill. Most of the time, he didn't give much thought to Mokona. She translated for them, transported them, and performed various other vital functions, yet already, Fai had stopped thinking of her as a magical construct and started regarding her as . . . well, not as a pet. Mokona was too clever to ever be called a pet. But a sort of . . . mascot, he supposed. But in thinking of her as such, Fai had forgotten how dangerously perceptive Mokona could be. "It's really all right," he insisted, picking her up and cradling her in his palms. "I was only thinking about something unpleasant that I have to do later on. No reason to worry."

"Is there anything Mokona can do to cheer Fai up?"

He smiled, and for once, it was genuine. "You already have. Thank you." He set her down and started to reach for his open bag of candy again, but as he did, he caught sight of one of the screens. It was replaying one clip over and over, taking it apart and analyzing it, but it wasn't the announcer's words that made his insides go cold. No, it was what he was seeing. That three-second clip showed Syaoran slamming onto the track, batted aside by one of the swinging obstacles he'd so easily navigated earlier in the day. His body went limp for a moment upon impact, as if he'd briefly lost consciousness, but then he rolled onto his side and Fai saw several trails of blood leaking down the front of his face.

Panicked, Fai shot to his feet, pieces of candy falling to the ground as he launched himself out of his seat and started running toward the stairs at the end of the row. In his inattention, he'd let his mind wander from the race. He'd assumed everything would be fine. After all, they'd made it through their earlier practice unscathed. Fai had thought he'd had no reason to be concerned. But if Syaoran _died—_

(so much blood, why is there so much blood, why isn't he moving, why can't I save him, why, why, why)

—then that was the end of it for Fai, the end of everything he'd worked so hard to achieve these past few decades and—

(has to be a way, I'd do anything to bring him back, must be a way to save him, save him, save him, I can't save him, why can't I save him)

—he needed to do something, so he rushed down the steps, almost crashing into a snack vendor in the middle of a transaction, and ran for the racetrack.

* * *

><p>Tension thrummed in the air like a diminished chord from a harp in desperate need of tuning. Primera waited at the second starting point, flexing her fingers in a futile attempt to soothe her unease. <em>Nothing is going to go wrong, <em>she told herself forcefully. _Shougo doesn't know I'm working against him. _

It was a pleasant lie. Shougo couldn't _prove _she was working against him, but that didn't mean he was unaware of it. She'd played her role well—acted scared when Shougo had been stabbed, babbled happily when the doctors had said he was stable enough to leave the hospital despite the injury, pretended to be thrilled when Shougo had insisted on participating in the race when he should have been resting. But he knew. She'd seen that knowledge glittering in his remaining eye as he'd told her to take the second leg of the race.

The darkness that had taken root inside of him had grown too entrenched for her to ignore.

_No. No, if he knew I'd betrayed him, I'd already be dead. _She took a breath, peering down the racetrack. Many racers seemed to be having difficulty with the obstacles, particularly the pendulums, which she'd figured to be the easier of the two. _There were hardly any injuries during the practice runs, and none of those were serious. Something's going on, but what? _

Her eyes flickered to the others at her starting point. Most looked focused, and a handful looked nervous. As she watched, the tall man with coppery skin broke off from their line to speak to one of the technicians monitoring the race. He was one of the princess's companions, according to Yuuko. Primera considered sharing her concerns—would have, if she'd been able to figure out some compelling explanation for the tension humming in her veins—but before she could, Kyle coasted up to her, jumping off the hoverboard and handing it to her.

She took it automatically, the switch-off ingrained after months of practice, and accelerated down the track, quick but apprehensive. _Is it sabotage? _she wondered, thinking of how many teams had already been knocked out of the race. _Did Kyle know about it? Is that why he made it through without trouble? _

That could be problematic. If it _was _sabotage, then it was almost certainly the work of Shougo or his mysterious master. In either case, if Kyle had known, that meant Shougo had trusted him with that information. Yet he hadn't told Primera of his plans, which suggested he didn't trust _her, _which added fuel to her anxiety. _Am I flying straight into a trap? _she wondered, scanning the section of track in front of her. Nothing looked out of place. _Was it only the first section of the race that was rigged? Or has Shougo sabotaged the whole thing? How would he even—_

If she hadn't been examining the track in front of her, she'd have missed the brief pulse of light up ahead, would have missed the faint vibration of magic that followed. As it was, she had barely half a second of warning before fire bloomed across the track. Heat scorched her arms, tearing through skin like tissue paper. Her feet came free of her hoverboard. She hit the ground. Then the pain hit, a great cascade of agony born of fire searing away flesh. Even as the greater part of her concentration shattered under the pain, a part of her mind continued to work, repeating one thought over and over:

_He knows I betrayed him._

* * *

><p>Kurogane had never been particularly fond of fire. Even before Suwa had burned, he'd had a few unfortunate encounters with flames—a careless hand grabbing a hot cooking pot, the back-blow of a sword technique gone wrong, the bottom of his cloak catching fire after he'd strayed too close to a patch of hot coals. The destruction at Suwa had been the great tragedy that had cemented his hatred—and fear, though he'd never admit it aloud—of fire.<p>

So he was understandably displeased when flames roared along the track in front of him. He veered to the left, nearly colliding with one of the other racers as he struggled to slow himself. Ahead of him, the plume of fire swallowed up a handful of hoverboarders. "Ah, hell," he muttered, turning again as heat rolled over him. The flames dissipated quickly after the initial explosion, though a few sections of the track continued to burn. Medics were already rushing over to assist those who had been hurt. Kurogane slowed, bile rising in his throat. The smell of burnt flesh hung thick in the air, dredging up memories he preferred to leave buried. The demons had slaughtered many that night, but the fires born from the chaos had caused nearly as many casualties. He'd eventually destroyed the demons, but by then there hadn't been much to save. Everyone had either burned to death or been devoured. He was the only survivor.

_Stop it, _he told himself, speeding up. There was nothing he could do here. He'd never learned anything about healing or caring for the wounded. He only knew how to destroy. He was a killer, not a healer.

But for the first time in his life, a part of him wished he could be both.


	55. Medics

Chapter Fifty-Five

"Everybody off the track!" one of the technicians ordered, stepping out of the protected pit and gesturing sharply. In her peripheral vision, Sakura saw the people around her hesitate, uncertain, then break off one-by-one to enter the pit. Even Shougo, directly to her right, followed the technician's orders, disappearing along with the others.

Sakura didn't move. She couldn't take her eyes off the part of the track where the explosion had gone off. Her pulse thrummed in her ears. Parts of the track looked blackened and deformed, but a layer of smoke obscured smaller details. Details like people. Or corpses.

_No, _she told herself. _No, don't think like that. Maybe nobody died. Maybe . . . _She inhaled slowly, and the air tasted stale. Oxygen-poor. _Of course. The fire from that explosion would have used up a lot of oxygen. _She coughed, squinting as her eyes started to sting. Some of the smoke had blown toward this section of the track, thick and acrid. Pressing a hand to her face, she walked toward the edge of the track, trying to get a better view. A handful of racers had made it through the explosion without injury. She looked closely, searching . . .

There. She could see Kurogane near the front of the pack. He flew recklessly fast, but with such precision that if she hadn't known better, she'd have assumed he'd been hoverboarding for years. _Safe, _she thought, relieved.

By the time Kurogane rounded the final curve of his section, he'd passed the other racers and acquired a decent lead. Not that it made much difference, since the others around her had retreated into the pit. Belatedly, she considered following—it probably wasn't safe to remain on the track. Whether by sabotage or accident, the race had been compromised, its participants put in jeopardy. What if there was another explosion?

Kurogane braked hard, coming to a stop right in front of her. "You all right?" he asked.

She blinked slowly. "I'm not hurt."

"Good." He handed her the hoverboard. "You've got healing magic, right? You used magic on that kid from the world with the hot springs."

_Healing magic. _Her mind switched gears at once. "How many people are hurt?"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "I didn't stop to _count. _Just . . . go, all right? Looks like the race is over for now anyway."

She climbed onto the hoverboard and glided down the track, not toward the finish line but toward the site of the explosion. Perhaps she should have been more concerned with keeping herself out of harm's way, but she'd been taught from a very young age that a leader's duty was to the people. A royal family who only looked after their own interests was a danger to their country, to their subjects. If people needed her, she would be there, even if it jeopardized her own mission.

She reached the site of the explosion without much trouble. As soon as she came close, one of the medics stopped what he was doing and blocked her path. "Medical personnel only, please."

"I have medical training," she said. "I can help."

The man hesitated, taking in her racing suit and hoverboard, then letting out a breath. "See that woman over there? The redhead? Her name's Ginger. She'll give you something to do."

Nodding, she headed off in the indicated direction. Ginger stood in the midst of everything, a long white coat draped over her thin frame, directing a fleet of medical personnel. When she saw Sakura standing there, she frowned. "The injured who can still walk are to report to the infirmary by the west viewing platform."

"I'm not injured. I can help."

With an impatient sigh, the woman tilted her head toward a small red tent that had been set up at the edge of the track. "Go in there and tell the guy with the glasses I sent you to help."

Sakura headed toward the tent, setting her hoverboard down outside before pushing open the flap. Two cots had been erected inside, both occupied. The one on the left held a familiar figure, and Sakura tensed, feeling her magic surge to her hands before she forced it back down.

"Hey, princess," Primera said, her voice lacking its usual sarcastic edge. "You win the race?"

"Are you supposed to be here?" asked one of the medics. _Ah. This must be the man Ginger mentioned. _

"Ginger told me to come here to help. I have a little medical training," she added, hoping he wouldn't call her bluff. In a way, she _did _have medical training—magically-inclined members of the royal family were expected to learn healing magic, as it was considered the most useful variety of magic in Clow—but she doubted this man would appreciate her skill set.

"Fine. The patients wounds will need to be cleansed and wrapped. Start with the girl." He handed her a container of what was presumably antiseptic, as well as a roll of bandages, and she held in a sigh of relief. _This, _at least, she could do.

She knelt next to Primera's cot and began applying the antiseptic. As she did, Primera's eyes focused on her face. "You know who did this, don't you?"

Sakura tensed, then continued applying the medicine. She didn't answer.

Primera's lips twisted into a sneer. "I'm trying to help you."

"Are you?" she asked, meeting Primera's gaze. The girl's eyes narrowed, and she huffed out a breath.

"You know Yuuko?"

Her fingers tightened reflexively, and Primera let out a hiss of pain. _How does she know Yuuko? How _could _she know Yuuko, unless . . . _"You're not from this dimension, are you?"

"Look, princess, there are a lot of questions I can't answer. It's dangerous to interfere too much." Primera paused, then shook her head. "Just . . . Remember that for every force, there's an opposing force."

Sakura's eyebrows pulled together. "I don't know what you mean."

"Good and evil. Ruin and preservation. Chaos and order. That sort of thing. Quit looking at me like that, would you? I'm not crazy. So if Yuuko is a force of good . . ."

Sakura hesitated, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was paying attention to her. _If what Primera is saying is true, and Yuuko is a force of good . . . then there must be someone opposing her. _That lined up with some of the things she'd already suspected. Shougo had said something after he'd kidnapped her, something about his master. He'd known about Syaoran's feathers. His master, then, had to be someone who knew why she was traveling and wanted to oppose her. _But who? And why? How many people besides Yuuko could know about this journey? _She frowned. Syaoran, Fai, and Kurogane all knew. So did the boy who'd been working for Yuuko when Sakura had landed in that world. Who else?

_Tomoyo must know, _she realized, remembering the night she'd met Tomoyo in the dream-world. Their conversation had been brief, but Tomoyo obviously had enough experience dreamwalking to have gleaned such information. Yet in their brief conversation, Sakura had sensed nothing amiss in Tomoyo's intentions. _Not that I'm a very good judge of character, _she thought, grimacing. _The reason I got kidnapped in the first place was because I trusted Shougo. _

She pushed the memory of her kidnapping away. It was still too raw. What had happened after didn't make things any better.

_After . . . _she thought, heart plummeting. _That dream. _Images flickered through her mind. The king with madness in his eyes, the wrenching pain in her shoulders as she'd struggled to escape, the sickening panic when she'd realized she couldn't get away. King Ashura was a dreamwalker, and far more experienced than she was. He could easily piece together the details of her journey with his ability, and he'd already proven to be a dangerous, unstable foe. Could he be the mysterious master Shougo had been referring to?

"I wish I could tell you more," Primera said quietly. "But I can't. I'm bound by certain rules, you see. If I break them, I won't be able to go home." A shadow fell across her expression, then disappeared as resolve gathered in her eyes. "Be careful. Shougo's not the most dangerous person you're going to come in contact with. Not even close."

Sick with fear, Sakura nodded. "Thank you."

"Please. I haven't told you anything you wouldn't have figured out eventually. Kind of makes me wonder if anything I'm doing here has any effect." She shook her head. "Hardly matters now. You've heard my message. That's all I can give you."

"Then let me give you something in return," she said, glancing at the other medics. None of them were looking in her direction, so she let her hands hover over the worst of Primera's burns and sent threads of magic spinning out from her fingertips. It wasn't the type of magic Fai had been teaching her. This was something she'd learned from Yukito before she'd left Clow.

The strands of magic wove together, becoming pale ribbons of light. Primera gasped, eyes widening as the soft light poured over her body, healing the ravaged skin. Blisters sank beneath the surface, reabsorbed and restored to normal, and the angry red tint of her wounds became the soft pink of fresh skin.

Sakura had nearly finished when the pain struck. She gasped, doubling over as something _shredded _inside of her. Primera's look of wonder changed to alarm. Behind them, something flashed, sparks flying in every direction as one of the machines caught fire. But worst of all was the pain. It felt like someone had reached inside her chest and ripped out one of her lungs. She couldn't breathe, couldn't scream.

Her body hit the ground hard, but by then, she was already unconscious.


	56. Rebounds

Chapter Fifty-Six

"Can you hear me?"

The words filtered through Sakura's mind, discordant and nonsensical. It took her several seconds to piece together the syllables, then a few seconds more to find meaning in them. "What happened?" she mumbled, eyelids sliding open. A pale face ringed with silky gold hair hovered above her. Fai.

"Officially, you fainted when you saw that girl's wounds. Right after that, one of the machines in the medical tent short-circuited."

Sakura blinked, processing that. "Officially?" she repeated, meeting Fai's eyes.

"Unofficially, you experienced a Rebound."

"A . . . what?"

"A Rebound. It happens when you stretch your magic too far." All traces of levity drained out of his expression. "You shouldn't have tried to use magic. Not without giving yourself more time to recuperate. Trauma can open doors in the mind that give you access to more magical power, and you've been through a lot these past few days."

She frowned. He'd told her this last night, after they'd found her unconscious, blocks away from the building Shougo had tried to imprison her in. Already, it seemed like days had passed.

Fai watched her, worry glittering in his eyes. She wondered how much of it was genuine and how much was an act. _He called Ashura his foster father, _she thought, shuddering as she remembered that dream. When she'd told Fai of her nightmare, he'd insisted it must have been some other King Ashura, yet how could that be? True, they'd met alternate versions of people from their own worlds, but in each case, the lives they'd lived had been vastly different from those of their counterparts. The possibility of there being multiple Ashura's who carried the title of king was illogical. Which meant Fai was lying.

He leaned forward. "Can you tell me what happened right before you passed out?"

The question brought her back to the present moment. She clutched the front of her shirt. "I was healing Primera-san," she said. "Her burns looked so painful. I couldn't leave her like that when I had the power to help. I'd nearly finished, but then I felt this awful pain." Her knuckles whitened.

"Like someone had forcibly ripped one of your organs out?" Fai asked, a knowing look in his eyes.

She nodded. "I don't remember anything after that."

"I see." Fai looked toward the tent wall, his expression troubled. No one else was inside, though Sakura could see some of the same medical equipment that had been present in Primera's tent. She supposed the medics would have brought her here after she'd passed out, though she was obviously not a priority patient.

"I suppose I should have mentioned this last night, but the effects of a Rebound aren't limited to the person who causes it." Fai met her eyes. "A Rebound is essentially the sudden restoration of balance, accomplished by reintroducing energy to its proper place. By using magic you weren't recovered enough to handle, you created an imbalance. The Rebound, then, was that energy snapping back into place—in this case leaving your body and reentering the physical world. You passed out because the Rebound drained most of the energy from your body. However—and this is important—that energy had to go _somewhere, _and when it left _you, _it surged into the physical world. That's why that machine short-circuited."

Her eyes widened. "_I _did that?"

Fai nodded solemnly. Sakura's shoulders sagged. "You may have caused yourself permanent damage." Fai looked down. "There are ways to safeguard yourself against Rebounds, but most mages-in-training spend months studying before they work this kind of magic. Your progress is remarkable," he said, smiling faintly, "but today you drew upon more magic than you were ready to."

"You said that emotional trauma can make magic-users more powerful," she said. "How could I have drawn upon too much magic? I've done healing spells on that level before, with Yukito."

"Yes, but . . ." Fai lifted one hand to his head and clutched at his hair, as if trying to explain something incredibly complex to someone with minimal knowledge of the topic. Which, she thought miserably, was precisely the case. "When magical ability spikes because of trauma, it's a bit like being badly wounded. Just like you'd need time to recuperate after breaking your arm, you need to rest after you break through the barriers keeping your magic flowing as it naturally would. What you did today was no different than getting into a fistfight when you've already received a hairline fracture—the best case scenario is that you walk away in the same state you were in previously, and the worst-case scenario is that the fracture becomes worse. _That's _why I told you not to use your magic for a while." He met her gaze, his eyes imploring. "You can't do this to yourself. You're going to break."

She looked away. "I'm not going to break. I can't."

Sorrow touched Fai's expression. "We don't choose when we break," he said quietly. "It just happens."

Her eyes darted to his face, then away. There was something there, a terrible grief in his eyes, and she wondered if it had anything to do with the mad king. Had he killed someone Fai had loved? Or, since Fai had regarded Ashura as a foster father, had the king's madness led him to perform some terrible betrayal?

Had Ashura broken Fai somehow? _I've spent most of the past twenty-four hours thinking he was lying to me, _she thought, shame splitting her heart. And maybe he _had _lied. But if the reason for those lies was to shield himself from the anguish that had flashed in his eyes only a moment ago . . . perhaps it was better to accept the deception and move on.

"The race," she said, breaking the silence.

Fai drew back, the emotion fading from his eyes. "The last leg of the race has been postponed until the culprit behind the explosion is discovered, although the relative placements of each team will affect whether they get a head start or not. Since Kuro-pyon was one of the first to finish his section, you should be in a good position when the race is rescheduled."

A better outcome than she could have hoped for. "What about Primera? That girl I healed. Is she . . ."

"Fully recovered, thankfully. If the Rebound had reacted against both of you, it could have seriously hurt her." He hesitated, an uncharacteristic frown rippling across his face as he considered something. "I'll have to teach you how to guard yourself against magical backlash, but it will take time, and as I said, you need to rest first."

She nodded. "While I do that, we can work on figuring out who's behind the attacks."

"The officials are already investigating," Fai said, though the objection sounded weak.

If recent events hadn't stripped away some of her optimism, she might have let it go. The investigators would, after all, be better qualified to examine what had happened than she was. But . . . well, it wasn't that she _couldn't _trust anymore—her ability to accept that Fai's lies were not directly harmful to her was proof enough of that—but she was starting to learn when it was acceptable to trust and when it wasn't. She didn't personally know the investigators, nor did she have any evidence suggesting whether they were dedicated or corrupt. She had to assume that a number of them could be manipulated, threatened, or bribed, and therefore she should not trust them entirely.

"Is there a way we can get close to the site of the explosions?" she asked.

"Unlikely. The investigators have already set up a perimeter around the affected area, and they've already started interviewing people. I suspect each of us will be interrogated as well. We'll need to get together and agree on a story."

She sat up, pain lancing through her chest. "But we haven't done anything wrong!"

"No," Fai agreed, "but we're outsiders. None of us have ever participated in a race before, which will make the investigators wonder. Also, we didn't acquire identification for this world until a few weeks ago, and from there, it's not such a great leap for them to believe that we somehow created fake identities. We may not be guilty, but for the people investigating, our sudden appearance in this world will be suspicious."

_He's really thought this out, _she noted, though he'd had more time to consider the possible obstacles they'd face in the wake of what had happened today. _We really _do _need a cover story, _she thought, grimacing. "What about Syaoran and Kurogane-san?"

"They're both fine. Though Syaoran-kun did struggle a bit more than I'd expected with his leg of the race, now that I consider it."

"We have to talk to them. Tell them we'll need to think of an alibi."

"As soon as the medics have finished checking them over, they'll be sent to the open area near the concessions stands. Everyone's being corralled there until they can be interviewed. Oh, by the way—" he added suddenly, "I told the medics that I was your older half-brother so they would let me wait here until you woke up. We'll be able to explain why we have different last names on our ID cards, but if anyone questions why we're sticking together, we'll have an excuse. We should be all right. We are, after all, innocent as far as the race is concerned. But we should tread carefully regardless." He paused a moment. "Do you feel well enough to walk?"

Hesitantly, she swung her legs over the edge of the cot and rested a bit of her weight on them. When her legs remained steady, she nodded. "I think so."

"Okay. I'll let the medics know you're ready to go where everyone else is gathered up."

A few minutes later, a young woman with disheveled red hair came in to check her vital signs. As soon as she finished, she pointed them in the direction of a pair of security personnel who had been ordered to escort people wherever they needed to go.

Fai walked alongside her, chatting about mundane things. At one point, he patted her shoulder and said, "Everything will be all right, Sis. There's nothing to worry about."

It took her a moment to realize he was trying to maintain their cover story. Thankfully, he didn't seem to need much input from her, as everyone would expect her to seem shaken by the disaster. They found their way to the others without incident, at which point Syaoran shuffled over (limping slightly, she realized with a pang of distress) and pulled her into a tight hug. "Are you all right?"

"I wasn't hurt, but we need to work out a cover story," she whispered, pulling back just slightly. Then, in a louder voice, she said, "I'm so glad you and your cousin weren't injured in the blast."

Briefly, Syaoran looked confused. His puzzlement dissipated when Sakura tilted her head toward Kurogane, who watched the three of them with an unreadable expression.

"Right," Syaoran said. "Me, too." He laced his fingers through hers, holding their hands between them, then gently pressed his lips to her knuckles. "Is this okay?" he asked, face flaming. "It seems more realistic than all of us being related. You and I being . . . together, I mean."

Despite the situation, she found herself smiling. "We _are _together, Syaoran."

"Ah, right." His blush deepened, eyes sinking to his feet as he shuffled them awkwardly.

With a gusty sigh, Kurogane shoved his hands in his pockets. "Don't see why we need a cover story. We didn't do anything."

"Kuro-pin, you have _far _too much faith in the justice system," Fai said, grinning as if the ninja had just told a particularly amusing joke. "At best, people will assume we're foreigners who are ignorant of the situation. At worst, they'll look through our records, find out we don't have any history, and lock us away on suspicion of criminal activity."

Kurogane regarded him for a long moment. "You _would _know that."

Fai's grin only widened. "I have no idea what you're talking about!" he said brightly.

The dull thump of footsteps garnered their attention, and in unison, they turned to the pair of security officers walking their way. "Hello," Fai said, the smile on his face a perfect blend of surprise and complacency. "Can we help you?"

"You four are in the next group to be questioned," one of the men said. "Come with us."

With a shrug, Fai glanced over his shoulder at her. "Come on, Sakura-chan. Everything will be fine."

_I hope you're right about that, _she thought, their cover story suddenly seeming as flimsy as wet tissue paper.


	57. Melodies

Chapter Fifty-Seven

In the end, the interrogation turned out to be more like an interview than the will-breaking assault of questions Sakura had anticipated. The officers separated the four of them—plus Mokona, though they allowed her to remain with Fai, assuming she was some sort of robot—then commenced with their questions. In Sakura's case, they mostly asked about what she'd been doing the past few days.

Naturally, she lied about most of it. One, she doubted the police would look favorably upon a girl who had recently stabbed someone in the eye, then neglected to report it, and two, it would have raised too many questions about her purpose here.

It surprised her how easily the lies came, though perhaps it shouldn't have. So far, she'd only told Kurogane anything of what had happened when Shougo had kidnapped her. None of the rest of her companions knew, and without realizing it, she'd built walls against their worried glances and unspoken questions. The officers prodded more firmly, but there was an air of resignation about them. It wasn't until they'd been speaking to her for almost fifteen minutes that she understood why.

_Of course. To them, I'm practically still a child. Why _would _they think I had anything to do with this? _Fai's earlier words about the four of them having no history in this world, no background, no records rang in her ears, but the longer she stood there talking about seemingly minor things, the more she began to realize that despite that, it was unlikely any of the officers would look more deeply than this interview.

"All right, last question," said the woman leading the interrogation. She looked to be in her late twenties and, judging by the subtle swell of her belly, was late in her first trimester of pregnancy. If not for the uniform, Sakura would never have guessed at her occupation, as she looked less like an enforcer of the law and more like a woman built for motherhood, with a gentle face, soft brown hair, and wide hips. "At any point during the race, did you notice anyone behaving strangely?"

She opened her mouth to say no, then reconsidered. "Well . . . It might be nothing," she said, seeing a flicker of interest spark in the woman's eyes. It emboldened her, and she stood a little taller. "But before the event, one of the other competitors was joking around about how he hoped it would be an exciting race. I wouldn't have remembered at all, except that he said something . . . what was it?" She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, wondering if she was trying too hard. "He said he expected it to be an explosive race," she finished, shrugging. "At the time, it just seemed like the sort of thing anyone might say, but . . ."

The woman watched her with sharp eyes, her fingers rigid around the electronic tablet she'd been making notes on. "Can you identify this individual?"

"He had an eye-patch," she said, as if the memory had only just come to her. "And he was about _this _tall. Pale brown hair. Goggles, I think? He'd pushed them back so they sat high on his forehead instead of over his eyes. That's all I remember."

The officer made note of it. "Let us know if you remember anything else," she said seriously before sending Sakura back to the partitioned area where the other racers waited to be questioned.

"How did it go?" Kurogane asked, having made it back before her.

She glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "I might have implied that Shougo had something to do with the explosions," she whispered. The ninja drew back slightly, and she felt an impulse to defend her actions. "Even if he didn't do it, he deserves the trouble it'll cause him. It's not like I'm hurting someone who doesn't deserve it."

If anything, Kurogane looked even more uncertain than before, as if he couldn't quite match up what he'd just heard to what he expected from her. Her jaw hardened. She was _right_. And if the explosion really was a result of sabotage, well, it was only logical that Shougo had been the one behind it.

Before Kurogane could say anything about it, Syaoran appeared, carrying a paper bag filled with coarse-looking puffs of . . . she wasn't quite sure what to call them. "What is that?"

"It's called popcorn," he said, holding the bag out to her. "Evidently, it's made by taking little kernels like these—" He held up a brown seed-shaped pod "—and heating them up until the water inside turns to steam. Then they pop and turn into these." He held up one of the yellow puffs. "Would you like some?"

Eyebrows pulling together, she fished several pieces of popcorn out of the bag and popped them into her mouth, reflexively licking her lips. "It's so salty!"

"I thought so, too." Syaoran's smile wavered. "You don't like it?"

"I—no, it's fine. Thank you."

"Ah, I see you've discovered the local cuisine."

At Fai's voice, Sakura whirled around. He seemed cheerful as ever, though he did lower his voice as he reached them. "I think it's best we head back to the apartment for the day. The event coordinators said they would inform all the participants once they rescheduled the race, but that it would take a few days, at least, before the situation was sufficiently under control."

"Great," Kurogane said flatly. "Like we haven't already spent almost a month in this world."

"It will give us more time to practice," Syaoran said, glancing at her. Sakura smiled back, warmed by his optimism, and slid her fingers through his. A blush blossomed in his cheeks as he squeezed her hand.

"Perhaps for tonight, we should rest," Fai said, his eyes flicking in her direction. "Let's head back, shall we?"

They left, speaking only briefly with the officers, who assured them that they were free to go, but that they should make themselves available in the event they were needed for further questioning. Sakura waited patiently, staring out at the clusters of medical tents and groups of people waiting to be questioned. Shougo appeared to be absent, as did Kyle. _Currently being questioned? _she wondered, knowing neither of them had been injured in the explosions. _Or did they find a way to escape unnoticed? _

The thought unnerved her, and she grasped Syaoran's hand more firmly. "Is everything all right, Prin—Sakura?"

_If they've slipped away, there's nothing we can do about it, _she thought, forcing her lips into a smile. "Just a bit shaken up. I'll be fine."

He opened his mouth as if to say something more, then closed it, eyebrows pinching together. _The way I've been acting the past couple days, it's no wonder he's worried, _she thought, feeling a twinge of guilt. She still hadn't told him about what had happened between her and Shougo. She ought to—she trusted Syaoran with her life, with her heart, so there was no reason to hide anything from him—but this wasn't the place for that conversation, and she wasn't sure she could bring herself to explain it to him. Maybe in a few days, once she'd had more time to process everything.

* * *

><p>A week slipped by, the days passing like grains of sand through an hourglass. Sakura continued her hoverboarding practice, steadily becoming more adept at it. She never left the apartment alone; Kurogane or Syaoran were always with her. Fai stayed in the apartment, trying to coax the autochef into producing something edible or otherwise entertaining himself.<p>

She refrained from using magic, as Fai had suggested. The last thing she wanted was to experience another Rebound like the one she'd endured after healing Primera. The absence of her daily practice shouldn't have seemed so distracting, but even in the short time she'd devoted herself to strengthening her magic, she'd grown accustomed to using it for everyday tasks, such as lifting small objects or healing the scrapes and bruises she incurred from her daily hoverboarding practice.

That didn't mean that the lessons themselves ceased. Fai spent many mornings teaching her magic theory, jumping across an array of topics. His characteristic cheerfulness seemed more genuine during these sessions, and she wondered if he had taught any other mages back in his home world. When she asked, though, a pained expression flickered across his face. "I had an apprentice once," he told her. "But there was . . . an accident." He hesitated slightly over the words, enough to make Sakura decide not to pursue the line of inquiry further.

Two days after the race, he started teaching her the basics of rune-based magic. "It uses the same principles as the magic you've been learning so far," he said, "but expands upon them, giving you greater control and, by extension, a much wider variety of tools to work with. You do your rune-writing within a field of influence, arranging your magic like a tapestry through which you thread a string of symbols and letters."

She nodded. As her magical skill had improved, she'd gradually become able to perceive her magic manifesting as thin, thread-like projections within her field of influence. By twining several of these threads together, she could manipulate objects with more force and precision. She'd used the threads to pick the lock of the door of the room where Shougo had imprisoned her, then to wrest the knife from his hands and use it against him. "So the runes are linked to the threads, then?"

"Yes. The threads act as the power source while the runes . . . Hmm. How best to describe it?" Fai leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "Try thinking about it in terms of music. The threads create a pattern—a melody—which acts as the foundation for the spell." He moved his arms in a sweeping motion. "A more complex pattern can create a harmony, or even a counter-melody, which will be useful in more difficult spells." His hands circled one another, and she imagined two melodies twisting together in the air between them. "The runes, then, would be the lyrics. By themselves, they're nothing but words—snippets of ideas, really—no matter how well they flow, but within the context of the song, they take those melodies and harmonies and give them a more specific meaning. A song without words can convey a certain mood, but adding lyrics creates a context for that feeling—you can, for instance, have a sad melody and combine it with lyrics about death or the loss of something precious. An implied meaning becomes explicit with the right words. Constructed carefully, a sequence of runes can turn a generic spell into something very precise." A soft smile touched his lips as he met her eyes. "Now then, there are four-hundred seventy-two common runes, plus a few thousand uncommon ones, so let's begin memorizing, shall we?"

* * *

><p>Every day, Fai wrote a list of twenty or so runes, sitting with her while she copied them down and memorized their meanings. If they had shared a written language, the lessons would have gone faster, but since they didn't, he had to talk her through the meanings of each glyph as she transferred it onto a separate sheet of paper and wrote their meanings in her own language. It was tedious, and Fai would correct her often on the subtler strokes of the runes. A single flawed line or misplaced accent could radically change the meaning of a sequence, so perfect handwriting was essential.<p>

"We'll begin working on how to construct a grammatically appropriate rune sequence in a few days," he told her after a week of tiresome study. "The grammar is nearly as important as your choice of runes."

She sighed. "How much longer will it be before I can go back to actually using my magic?"

"A few more days, perhaps," Fai said, a bit hesitantly. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan. It won't be much longer. It's likely you've already recovered enough, but it pays to be careful."

"Careful," she repeated, shoulders sinking. "Of course."

"We received a message this morning, by the way. They've finally rescheduled the race."

She perked up. "Did they find out who sabotaged the first race?"

Fai shook his head. "No, but they did say that there would be extra security at the tracks, so it will be difficult for anyone to interfere this time. It's going to be held tomorrow at three."

_So Shougo wasn't apprehended, _she thought, grabbing her hoverboard from where she'd leaned it against the wall. _I'll need to be careful tomorrow. _"I'm going to go practice."

He smiled faintly. "Take care of yourself, Sakura-chan."

"I will," she thought, stepping out of her room. _If I can. _


	58. Regrets

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Worry sat like a stone in Syaoran's stomach.

He fidgeted on the bench, watching Sakura make a circuit around several cement structures. She'd gotten much better at hoverboarding during the extra week they'd had to practice, and she now coasted smoothly through obstacles that had stymied her only a handful of days ago. The two of them had been out here for nearly six hours, and she'd only fallen off the hoverboard twice, earning a few scrapes but no serious injuries.

No, her physical safety didn't worry him. Or, well, it _did, _but no more than usual. She was becoming quite capable in that regard, and he could admit to himself that some of his paranoia about her getting hurt while trying to retrieve his memories was irrational. Some of it. There was always a chance that she could be hurt, even in a civilized world like Avantine. When she'd gone missing that day—could it really have been only a week ago?—he'd rightly been worried about her safety.

More recently, though, he worried about whatever she was keeping from him. He'd been so glad when she'd come back, wounded but not so seriously as to warrant a trip to the hospital. She'd looked so brittle that night, as if the smallest thing could break her, and so he'd refrained from asking what had happened. By the following morning, though, she'd hidden her suffering behind an indifferent facade. It wasn't that she'd become _cold,_ exactly, but she was . . . distant. Reluctant to be drawn into anything deeper than casual conversation.

_Maybe I should ask, _he thought, watching her weave between several metal poles without slowing. _I'm sure she'll tell me what happened that day if I just ask. _His fingers curled and uncurled in his lap. He _could _ask, but whatever had happened had clearly been difficult for her. He didn't want to make her relive painful memories if she wasn't ready to. At the same time, if he _didn't _ask, and she kept hiding things from him . . .

He loved her. Even with only a tiny portion of his memories back, he was certain of that. He couldn't imagine feeling anything so strongly for anyone else, and the tangle of affection and protectiveness certainly felt like love. There was a _rightness _to the world when she was with him. How could that feeling be anything _except _love?

She swerved, making a tight loop and gliding back in his direction. Syaoran stood, holding out a bottle of water for her as she slowed and stepped off the hoverboard. "Thank you," she said, unscrewing the top and taking a long drink. Her smile when she replaced the cap warmed him from his skin to his bones. "I think that's enough practice for today. We can do a bit more before the race tomorrow."

"Sure," he said, taking the water bottle back as they strolled toward their apartment complex. As they walked, he contemplated the best way to bring up her brief disappearance. It was better for him to know, he decided. If he knew what had happened, maybe he could help her work through it.

"Fai-san has been teaching me about rune-writing," she said, interrupting his train of thought.

"Ah. How's that going?"

"It's a bit boring, actually." She sighed. "It's like studying spelling. But I've memorized a little over a hundred runes now, and Fai-san says my handwriting is getting better, though he still won't let me use magic."

He nodded. She'd told him about her recent difficulties with magic—it had something to do with her disappearance, though she never explicitly stated what the connection was. Regardless, it gave him the opening he'd been looking for. "You mentioned that you'd been having difficulties ever since the day you went missing."

A brief hesitation. "Yes, I suppose that's true."

He waited for her to say more. She didn't. "Do you think the two might be connected somehow?" he asked, pausing at an intersection as they waited for the light to change. Something flickered in Sakura's eyes, then disappeared before he could identify it.

"Maybe." She shrugged. "But magic can be complicated sometimes."

"Have you asked Fai-san about it?"

"We talked about it a little. He says I'm probably fine now, but we're going to wait a few more days to be safe."

_Is she evading my questions on purpose? _he wondered. The light changed, allowing them to cross the street. Sakura walked purposefully, moving faster than before. Yes, she was definitely dodging the topic. He'd have to be more direct. "I've been wondering what happened that day. You haven't said much about it."

"There's not much to say."

"But when you came back, you had cuts on your feet, and you looked so . . ." _Fragile, _he thought, pressing his lips into a thin line.

"I lost my shoes. That's why my feet were bleeding."

"But how? Princess—Sakura," he corrected himself when she stiffened. He took a breath. "Is there a reason you're not telling me what happened?"

Her gait faltered for a moment. They were in front of their apartment building now, which meant he had perhaps two more minutes with her before they rejoined Fai and Kurogane. If she'd told either of them what had happened, they were just as tight-lipped about it as she was. Syaoran hurried to keep up with her, but she picked up her pace, seeming determined not to meet his eyes. He followed her through the automatic doors, into the lobby. "Sakura, please. _Please_, let me help you."

Without looking at him, she shook her head, striding toward the elevator. He trailed after her, catching her hand in his as they reached the doors. To his shock, she whirled around to face him. "I don't want to talk about it, all right?" Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and the raw pain in her voice made him take a step back.

"Sakura . . ."

The elevator doors opened. She stepped across the threshold, facing away from him again. "I'll tell you someday," she said, her voice wavering. "Until then, please don't ask about it."

Between them, the doors started to move. "Sakura," he repeated softly.

The only response he received was the hollow thump of the doors closing.

* * *

><p>Alone in the elevator, Sakura wiped her eyes and struggled to breathe. It was harder than it should have been. Guilt and distress wove a noose around her neck, tightening as memories of that day flashed through her mind. She'd built walls around those memories, not allowing herself to think of them. Part of the reason why she'd willingly subjected herself to hours of studying runes was because the tedious memorization gave her something else to focus on.<p>

Time. She needed more time to process everything. The kidnapping, her escape, the hours she'd spent wandering the city afterward, meeting King Ashura in the realm of dreams, realizing that Fai was somehow involved with the cruel monarch. She had told Kurogane because he had seen enough in his life to know something of human cruelty. She'd reached out to him in desperation, knowing he wouldn't blame her for what she'd done—what she'd _thought _she'd done—but she couldn't bring herself to tell Syaoran. What would he think of her, knowing she had nearly killed someone, even in self-defense?

She couldn't do it. Maybe it was cowardly, or weak, but it was one of the few shortcomings she could allow herself. It didn't interfere with her quest to recover Syaoran's feathers. As for their relationship . . . Well, she loved him. And maybe, even though he didn't remember the years they'd spent together, he loved her, too. That would have to be enough.

* * *

><p>One did not become an accomplished liar without learning to pick up on subtle emotional cues. Fai sat at the end of the table, a portion of a chicken and green bean paella sitting on the plate in front of him. He'd managed to get the autochef to produce something palatable after only about ten minutes of pressing buttons. An impressive feat, considering his track record with the device. Chicken wasn't his favorite dish—he preferred desserts—but the flavors were balanced, the textures varied, and Kurogane and Mokona both ate with gusto.<p>

Syaoran picked at his food, forehead wrinkled slightly as he lifted a bit of rice to his mouth. He had returned from the hoverpark about five minutes after Sakura had—odd, considering that they'd left together—and he'd scarcely spoken a handful of words since. His scholarly nature meant that he sometimes withdrew into himself if he found something interesting to read, but his preoccupation this evening had a distinctly morose note to it.

Sakura was much the same, though her behavior had been less consistent since her trauma the previous week. Or even before then. She seemed to grow harder with every day that passed. A necessary change, perhaps, considering the challenges they'd inevitably face during their travels, but it pained him to watch it take place. That such a gentle, caring girl would be forced into this role—that of a protector on a dangerous journey—seemed unnecessarily cruel. Fai could shield her from some of it, for a time, but several immutable events loomed on the horizon. Events he couldn't protect her from. Events which would force him to do things detrimental to her well-being. Events for which he would never forgive himself, no matter how necessary they were.

_It always comes down to necessity, doesn't it? _he thought, taking another bite of his paella. _She hardens her heart because she has no choice. I move forward in my own goals because failing to do so isn't an option. When choice is taken away, what is left but to break ourselves doing what must be done? _

He considered asking them what had happened. If only one of them had seemed withdrawn, he could have attributed it to something insignificant. But both of them at the same time? Something had happened while they'd been out, and it had left them both depressed. It was a bit early in their relationship, complicated though it was, for them to be having a lover's quarrel, and in any case, neither of them were spiteful enough to say something harsh in anger then brood in silence over dinner. Fai suspected a lapse in communication. A misunderstanding. It was the kind of thing they'd have to sort out for themselves.

He hoped they resolved it soon. He didn't know how much time they had left before he was forced to move against them, but he knew that the moments of joy that remained to them were more precious than they probably realized. If they didn't talk it over soon, he would have to nudge them in the right direction. Fai had many regrets, but allowing the two of them to drift away from one another with the limited time they had together would not be one of them.


	59. Risks

_Author's Notes: _

_At long last, we reach the final stretch of this arc. I feel like we've been chipping away at this world for half the story now (which, when you look at the chapter distribution, isn't far from the truth). Part of the reason is that there were some big-picture plot things that happened in this arc (revelations of mid-level villains, adjustments to Sakura's competence slider, an overall shift in the tone of the story, the positioning of recurring characters, and some admittedly clumsy relationship development which I will eventually go back and fix). But we're very nearly done, and I promise we won't linger here much longer, though there is _one _major plot event left to go before we send the TRC gang to the next world (which I am_ super _excited about)_._ Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me this far, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story._

* * *

><p>Chapter Fifty-Nine<p>

Security was much tighter this time. They passed through half a dozen scanners, had their bags thoroughly checked, and ended up standing in line for a good twenty minutes before being allowed into the competitors' area.

"Good luck, Sakura-chan," Fai called, waving to her from the other side of the security fence. She waved back, managing a mostly-genuine smile as she met up with Syaoran and Kurogane, who had passed through security before her. Technically, there was no need for them to be here—they'd each finished their part of the race already, before the first event had been sabotaged, but as her teammates, they were permitted onto the tracks until the race itself began.

"You want to run the course a few more times?" Kurogane asked.

Sakura shook her head. "I'm ready." _And there are a few things I want to check before things get underway. _"I'm going to go change into my racing outfit. I'll meet you back here before the race."

Puzzlement flickered across Syaoran's face, but it was the knowing glint in Kurogane's eyes that made her nervous. "Make whatever preparations you need to make," he said, crossing his arms.

She headed to the locker rooms, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. Once inside, she quickly found a private stall with a curtain over the door and changed into her racing suit, stowing her regular clothes in the now-empty paper bag. Mokona was with Fai—the people of this world seemed to believe she was a robot, and with the extra security, they couldn't afford to draw attention to such an oddity. She'd leave her normal clothes with Syaoran when she went up to the track.

Dressed, she slipped out of the locker rooms, glancing around to make sure neither of her companions could see her, then headed in the opposite direction of the place she'd said she'd meet them.

Other racers had gathered along the tracks, chatting with one another or cheering their own teammates on as they practiced. Sakura maneuvered around the clusters of people, slowing to eavesdrop now and then. Though there remained some anxiety about another attack, no one seemed to be plotting anything, although Shougo and his team were conspicuously absent.

As she made her way around the competitors' area, Sakura glimpsed an alternate version of Chu'nyan, a man in a ponytail who looked like Kyle from behind but turned out to be someone else, and a number of people who looked vaguely familiar, though whether that was because they'd been in her section of the race or because she'd seen them here and there in previous worlds, she couldn't be certain.

She circled the entire area. Shougo and his team were nowhere to be found. _It doesn't have to mean anything, _she thought. _They might not have arrived yet. _

She made another circuit of the tracks, avoiding Kurogane and Syaoran so neither of them could ask what she was doing. As she passed near the main gate, where the security guards were helping the last few racers check in, she saw a group of men and women in crisp suits walking alongside a maintenance man as he pushed a cart across the pathway. Sakura slowed, her gaze zeroing in on the sturdy glass globe sitting atop the cart. Syaoran's feather floated inside, emanating a faint amber glow. The globe was anchored to the cart with several lengths of cables, and the sheer amount of security suggested that whoever was sponsoring the race was taking great pains to keep their "battery" from being damaged or stolen before it was time for the award ceremony.

She watched the cart until it was out of sight, then resumed her search, circling the waiting area once more. _Where are they? _she wondered, glancing at one of the nearby clocks. Nearly twenty minutes had passed since she'd left the others, and she hadn't so much as glimpsed Shougo or Kyle. _If only Primera were here, _she thought, remembering what she'd spoken of in the medical tent the day of the sabotaged race. Primera would know where her teammates were, whether or not she was really working against them.

Eventually, Sakura was forced to return to where Syaoran and Kurogane were waiting. "'Bout time."

Syaoran hurried over to her, his expression strangely vulnerable. "You were gone a while. Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," she said quickly. "I got a little turned around by the locker rooms. This world can be so confusing."

He didn't say anything, but one didn't have to know him well to see the skepticism in his eyes. _He knows I've been keeping things from him, _she thought, distressed. She hadn't done it out of malice. Everything she'd withheld from him she'd kept for his sake, or hers. Perhaps it was selfish to exclude him, but he was only just beginning to recover. Telling him everything that had happened in this world would only tax him further.

After a few minutes, she managed to get them discussing more innocuous topics. Gradually, she and Syaoran eased into casual conversation, Kurogane watching over them with his arms crossed, his black and red racing suit making him look like a sentry cut from the night sky.

Eventually, though, the time came for the racers to gather at the starting line. Relieved, Sakura started for the stairs leading up to the track, only for a callused hand to close around her shoulder. "If you see anything suspicious, keep clear of it," Kurogane said in a low voice. "You won't be able to finish what you started if you get yourself killed."

She met his eyes, surprised, though perhaps she shouldn't have been. Whatever darkness lurked in his past, Kurogane had listened to her when she'd hit her lowest point, had kept her secrets without complaint. They weren't friends, precisely, but he was the only one who seemed to accept that she wasn't delicate or helpless, despite the challenges she'd faced so far. "I'll be careful," she said at last.

He let her go, and she took the stairs up to the racetrack, hoverboard tucked under her arm. Most of the other racers were already in place, some anxious, others focused. She half-expected to find Shougo waiting for her, but he still hadn't shown up. _Is he worried that the investigators will think he's guilty? Or is he planning something? _It seemed odd that he would go through so much trouble to sabotage the first race, then not show up for the make-up race. Where had he gone?

The technicians spoke to each of the racers individually, scanning them again for weapons. They didn't want to risk missing anything, they said, and she had to admit it was something of a relief for them to be taking the danger so seriously after the last race. She was no longer optimistic enough to believe their security was airtight, but at least any obvious threats would be detected.

Minutes slipped by as final preparations were made. Giant screens panned over the different sections of the track as the announcer chattered about sponsors and contestants. In the distance, the audience bustled. It surprised her that so many people had come. After last week, she'd have expected attendance to taper off to only the most dedicated fans. Instead, the stands were packed, with more people standing at the fences, having been unable to find a seat.

The last few minutes ticked away. _It's time, _she thought, taking a deep breath to quell her writhing stomach. There was nothing more she could do about Shougo except hope that he'd been unable or unwilling to risk tangling with security. Which meant that it was time to turn Sakura focus on her real mission: winning Syaoran's feather.

At the ready signal, Sakura stepped onto her hoverboard, leaning back slightly to keep herself from shooting forward. The announcer's voice rose. The audience quieted. A set of hanging lights flashed red, then yellow.

The buzzer went off.

The pack of racers shot forward, accelerating rapidly as they vied for a position near the front. Sakura had started in an advantageous position because of her teammates' good standing early in the race, but even with an extra week of practice, others quickly surged ahead. She leaned forward, the wind whipping at her face as she tried to keep up.

By the time they reached their obstacle—a stretch of track pitted with steam-jets that erupted at random intervals—she was in the middle of the pack, hemmed in on either side by more experienced racers. Up ahead, those in the lead wove and twisted as geysers of steam exploded around them.

_It's too crowded back here, _she realized. The limited space between her and the other contestants meant that they would all struggle to dodge the steam-jets. She either had to catch up to the front—unlikely at this point—or fall back to avoid getting blasted. _Not good, _she thought, swerving as if the other racers would move aside for her.

As she passed over the first vent, one of the jets near her went off, sending the boy to her left catapulting through the air. She quickly slid into the open space he'd left behind, only to come within inches of flying face-first into another jet as it went off.

Chaos. She heard cries of alarm as the jets knocked her fellow racers off-course. It was pure luck that she avoided three geysers that exploded simultaneously nearby, that she was able to regain her balance when another girl, struggling to right herself, nicked the back of Sakura's hoverboard. Luck, and little else, but by the time she made it through the obstacle, she was near the front of the group and unhurt.

Remembering this part of the course from her practice runs a week ago, she banked hard to the right, staying on the inside of the track as it made a loop. Only five people stood between her and the first-place slot. Already, she was doing much better than she could have hoped, but none of it would mean anything if she didn't win.

She crouched, leaning forward as far as she dared so she could continue accelerating. Gradually, she eased into fourth place, then third. Her slight frame lessened the air resistance compared to her broad-shouldered opponents, and she closed the gap between herself and those ahead of her. In second-place now, she saw the finish line in the distance. At the speed they were going, they would cross it in less than fifteen seconds. Desperately, she leaned farther forward, her calves aching as she struggled to maintain her balance. If she tipped too far forward, her hoverboard might flip, and then any chance of victory would slip away from her. But if she wanted to win, she had to risk it.

Closer, closer . . . Only a few paces separated her from the man currently in first place. He inclined his head slightly as she gained on him, then leaned farther forward, speeding up. Gritting her teeth, Sakura crouched lower, accelerating. _Almost there, _she thought, leaning forward another inch.

It was too much. Her hoverboard flipped, sending her careening through the air.


	60. Wounds

Chapter Sixty

Luck played a part in most things, Sakura would decide later. It was luck that had helped her evade the steam jets on the track, luck which had allowed her to hit the bull's-eye of the target she'd practiced with in the Sapphire Islands, luck which had aided her escape from Shougo. And it was luck that sent her catapulting across the finish line in first place as the air caught her hoverboard and tore it out from under her feet.

It was gravity that slammed her into the track and left her with a broken arm, a cluster of deep bruises on her hands and knees, and very likely a concussion. Still, she didn't break her neck, which, judging by the recaps on the giant screens, was not merely lucky but miraculous.

"You'll want to keep the cast on for three to five days," the med-tech informed her as she sat, dazed, in one of the medical tents. "It will take time for the nanobots to reconstruct the bone in your arm, and until then, the cast will keep it stable. As for your head, we've injected you with some nanobots which will seek out any damaged blood vessels and patch them up. If you feel dizzy or nauseous, or if the headache doesn't subside after twenty-four hours, you'll want to see another doctor."

"Will she be all right?" Syaoran asked. Both his hands were clasped around her uninjured palm, and he'd been absently stroking his thumb over her knuckles for the past fifteen minutes.

"Now that's she's received treatment, she should be fine. Although perhaps in the future, she should refrain from such risky maneuvers on the tracks." The med-tech gave her a long look. "Victory is not worth your life. You could have cracked your skull or worse if you had landed differently."

She started to nod, then stiffened as the movement sent a dizzying jolt of pain down her body. "Okay," she whispered.

"You're free to go. The nanobots will pass through your system once their work is finished, but in the meantime, I suspect you're eager to be getting to the awards ceremony. Take care."

Syaoran helped her to her feet, fussing over her as she hobbled out of the tent. Kurogane, Fai, and Mokona waited outside. As soon as she pushed the tent flap aside, Mokona sprang out of Fai's arms and into hers, pressing her forehead against her collarbone. "Is Sakura all right?"

"I'm fine. Really," she insisted when Kurogane and Fai looked at her soberly. "They gave me an injection for the pain, and they say I should be completely healed in a few days. This world's medical care is really impressive, isn't it?"

"It's true!" Mokona chimed in, seeming quite cheerful now that it was clear she was all right. "There's nothing like this in Yuuko's world."

"I suppose that's something, at least," Fai said, managing a hollow smile. "Though we may end up having to stay here a few days longer so you can recover."

She tensed. "No, that's all right. We've been here long enough. I'd really rather we be on our way as soon as possible." _Before I run into Shougo or any of his friends again. _

"Before that, we've got to go get our prize," Kurogane said, tilting his head in the direction of the stage where the award ceremony would be held. "They're not going to wait around forever."

"Nonsense, Kuro-puu. They've been very understanding of the fact that their winner nearly died." Fai looked at her, his smile turning impish. "Though I'm sure Sakura-chan is eager to get another one of Syaoran-kun's feathers back."

They started walking. Or, well, the others walked while she shuffled stiffly after them. Syaoran continued holding her hand, his fleeting glances conveying his concern more loudly than if he'd shouted it. After a few minutes, they reached the edge of the crowd, at which point one of the event coordinators guided their group, minus Fai and Mokona, onto the stage while the audience roared in approval. _Those screens make it so our every move is on display, _she thought, feeling the weight of everyone's attention. Being the princess of a country meant she was accustomed to attention, but it felt somehow dishonest now. She wasn't anyone important here, only a girl who'd managed to win a hoverboard race. It didn't help that, despite her injury, the race had felt somewhat anticlimactic after last week's event. Granted, this wasn't some story she was living in, and the neat sense of completion so prevalent in fairytales would understandably be absent. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that loose threads like Shougo and his plans weren't supposed to wrap themselves up with no explanation.

"And now for the crowning of the victors," the announcer said, gesturing to three pedestals of varying heights. "In third place, we have Team Leaf, comprise of Marigan, Fiona, and Elysia."

The crowd cheered as a trio of girls in colorful tracksuits ran across the stage, doing cartwheels on their way to the shortest pedestal. They received a slip of paper which could be redeemed for credit at the local bank, as well as a bouquet of flowers dyed in neon colors.

"And in second, we have Team Hawk, comprised of Aeric, Kiyon, and Sebastian."

A louder cheer this time. Sakura recognized the man in front as the one she'd narrowly outpaced in the last moments of the race. He caught her eye and waved as he and the rest of his team stepped up onto the next-highest pedestal to receive their prize, which included a greater sum of money and a voucher for a variety of upscale restaurants around Avantine.

"And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, may we present our winners, Team Big Puppy, comprising of Sakura, Kurogane, and Syaoran."

"'Big Puppy?'" Syaoran echoed as the three of them made their way across the stage.

"Don't look at me," Kurogane said, clenching his fists. "The mage made it up."

Sakura smiled in spite of herself. The world could end, she thought, and Kurogane would still complain about Fai.

Kurogane and Syaoran stepped onto the tallest platform first, helping her up. The audience roared, thousands of voices slamming against them with almost physical force as a woman with curly white-gold hair walked up to them with a sheet of paper redeemable for what Sakura assumed was a significant amount of money, while another attendant wheeled the cart with Syaoran's feather over to the pedestal. "Well done," the first woman said, handing them the check. Sakura held it up, smiling, but her eyes remained fixed on the feather. _Finally. _

A _crack _resonated through the air, eclipsing the noise of the audience. Sakura started as the glass sphere protecting Syaoran's feather shattered, shards raining down with a musical tinkling. _What? _

Kurogane seized her by the shoulder. "Get down!"

Another _crack_. Sakura felt an impact, like a punch, beneath her ribs, then looked down, uncomprehending. A spot of blood blossomed across her abdomen, spreading at an alarming rate. _An arrow? _she thought fuzzily. But no, the projectile that had struck her was too small, the hole it had left too crisp. Flecks of black powder surrounded the wound, a sharp contrast to the bright colors of her tracksuit.

"Find the gunman!" someone shouted. "Secure the area immediately!"

"Where is he? How did someone get a gun past security?"

"Oh my god. That girl's been shot."

"S-Sakura?" Syaoran's trembling voice sounded strangely distant, though she'd ended up slumped in his arms as Kurogane loomed over both of them, his entire body rigid as he scanned the area for threats. Her own eyes darted about, shock distorting her vision. A disjointed series of faces, lights, and colors flickered in front of her. She caught sight of Fai as he wove through the crowd, his face sickly pale, his blue eyes panicked. She saw Aeric, the leader of the second-place team, grabbing a med-tech by the arm. She saw—

Shougo, a silvery weapon in his hand. It looked a bit like the stunners she'd seen the security team wielding, but older, like an antique. The device had a narrow barrel, as well as a revolving cylinder which sat above a delicately curved trigger. As she watched, he lowered the weapon—what had the woman called it? A gun? He lowered the gun, his free hand tracing a line through the air. A distortion split the air, like a tear in reality, beyond which a maelstrom of dark blues and deep blacks swirled. _That's the same place we pass through when we go between worlds, _she realized, several things falling into place. Shougo's mysterious master, Primera's warnings about a greater evil opposing Yuuko, the strange world-distorting powers of those soldiers who had attacked Clow the night Syaoran had lost his memories . . . As the gun slipped through the distortion, it disappeared, and for a brief moment, Sakura sensed something beyond that rift. Sorcery as vast and treacherous as a sea in storm. The rift closed a moment later, but the taint of the magic beyond it lingered, foul and choking.

Reality faded in and out. Sakura lifted her good hand to the wound on her abdomen. Already, blood had soaked through the lower half of her tracksuit, dripping down the smooth material.

"Step away from the girl," Shougo said, his voice cool.

Kurogane snarled a stream of invectives so profoundly insulting that it silenced everyone within ten paces. Kurogane lunged, hand snaking out to grab at Shougo's throat, but the man sidestepped the attack, blurring with speed. "Do not resist," Shougo said in a monotone. "My master has granted me great powers. You cannot hope to stop me."

"Fuck off." Kurogane made another grab for the man, but his hand only grazed Shougo's shirt as he moved out of the way. An instant later, he had Sakura by the collar and was wrenching her to her feet. Pain shimmered across her consciousness for the first time since she'd been hit, and her body convulsed. _So fast. So strong. What—_

Magic swirled through the air, filled with the same taint she'd sensed through the rift moments ago. Despite that, she recognized the feel of it. _He's going to take me to another world. He means to separate us! _

"Mokona, transport us now!" Fai shouted, his voice strained as he grabbed Syaoran by the arm. Mokona replied with something about the two spells interfering, but Fai cut her off. "Do it!"

Another spell shimmered underfoot as Mokona's transportation magic manifested as an elaborate circle beneath them. Shougo's darker magic infiltrated the white light, turning it red, red, red.

Sakura couldn't accurately describe what happened next, mostly because she was starting to lose consciousness. But she thought she saw Primera emerge from the crowd and sprint across the stage, slamming into Shougo from behind and knocking him down. His magic disrupted, Mokona's spell pushed away the taint, but the dimensional sea was already swelling around all of them—herself, her companions, and Primera and Shougo. Something was wrong—though Mokona's light was pure, Sakura could feel the influence of something much darker in the dimensional sea, something cruel and inhuman. An instant later, Kurogane's hand closed around her upper arm, and then the dimensional sea swallowed them up and took them elsewhere.


	61. Battlefields

Chapter Sixty-One

Kurogane snatched the princess by her unbroken arm as they tumbled into the space between worlds. Blood seeped from the hole in her abdomen; the violent twists and lurches cast droplets of it through the dimensional sea. He held her close as she faded in and out of consciousness, but the tumultuous journey between worlds wasn't doing her any favors. Kurogane didn't know much about magic, but he'd spent years watching over Tomoyo, experiencing the subtle ways her powers influenced her surroundings, and he'd learned enough about sorcery to know that something was very, very wrong.

Most of the time—or at least the few times Kurogane had passed through this place—the dimensional sea was otherworldly but tranquil. The substance they passed through felt as insubstantial as air, but behaved like water, and usually, they half-fell, half-floated to their next destination, surrounded by the faint glow of the meat bun's magic. Protected by it.

This time, they tore through the flimsy substance as if cast about by a whirlwind, and for all his strength, he could barely keep hold of the princess as they whipped through the sea. Kurogane had never been to the ocean, never even been on a boat, but if the tempests sailors sometimes encountered at sea were anything like this, he was glad he'd stuck to dry land all these years because _fuck, _this was making him nauseous.

When they hit the other end of the dimensional sea—if it could be called an end—they slammed through what felt like a pane of glass and into open air, once again affected by gravity. Kurogane had just enough time to twist in midair so he wouldn't land on the princess, and then they hit the ground, the rough stones below scraping through the synthetic fabric of his tracksuit and slicing into his back. Goddamn it, next time he saw the manjuu, he'd tell her that if she didn't work on her landings, she'd get them all killed.

Naturally, the creature was nowhere in sight, leaving him with no one to snap at. The mage and the boy were also absent, and judging from the lack of fake whistling and worried chatter, they weren't within earshot either. Kurogane looked around, hoping they might have fallen nearby, but the only sight that greeted him were several jutting rock formations. Their crystallized edges were partly responsible for the new scrapes on his back, and they sparkled in the light of the full moon, perilously beautiful.

Assured that there were no immediate threats to deal with, he turned his attention to the princess, cursing when he saw the sopping, bloody mess of her tracksuit. Whatever had hit her had gone deep enough to strike some major blood vessels, but it hadn't come out the other side, which meant someone was going to have to dig around for the projectile. Since he had no medical knowledge aside from personal experience, he decided that was a job for someone else to solve after he dealt with the bleeding.

He laid her down on a relatively smooth patch of stone and unzipped her tracksuit. The wound itself appeared to be a neat hole about the width of his thumb—surprisingly clean for the amount of blood it had spewed out—but it wasn't the type of injury he was familiar with. He was used to scrapes and slashes from assassin's blades and demon claws, but the closest approximation to this would be a crossbow bolt. Not exactly his area of expertise.

He tore several strips of cloth from the inner lining of the princess's jacket and tied them end to end, creating a makeshift bandage which he then wound around her abdomen. Blood continued to leak sluggishly from the wound, and he tried to convince himself that it was because her body's defenses had kicked in, rather than because she was running out of blood to lose. Either way, she was in dire condition. He couldn't afford to wait around for the mage and the boy to find them.

Picking her up carefully, he started walking. There had to be a settlement somewhere around here. The pork bun hadn't dropped them into a desolate world yet, and despite the stark landscape, there would no doubt be a village or town somewhere nearby. Even some rural medicine woman would provide better care than he could.

After a few minutes, he stopped, removed his jacket, and wrapped it around the girl's torso. The night air was crisp, not cold, but he'd seen people get treated for shock, and it almost always involved lots of blankets and fluids. He started walking again, scanning the crystalline terrain for signs of habitation. Maybe there _wasn't _anyone here. You couldn't farm on such rocky ground, and though it was possible that there would be mining towns around here, the readily available crystals underfoot appeared too common to be worth much. Looking at the sky, he could tell it was late in the night—darkness this deep didn't come until most people were already asleep, and though the full moon provided a good deal of light, he wasn't likely to hear anyone else tromping around at this hour. Except . . .

He paused, listening. Up ahead, he could hear the faint _clank _of metal on metal, the dull noise of people shouting. It sounded almost like a battle, but that seemed odd. Night was a good time for setting up an ambush or launching a surprise attack, but he'd learned to pick apart the subtleties of such battles. If a group had been ambushed, there would be panic, screaming, and the assailants would be keeping quiet, using the darkness to their advantage. Yet the noise was strangely uniform. Organized, like a battle fought during daylight hours.

Mouth pressed into a firm line, he kept walking. A war-zone wasn't exactly the best place to wander into, but for now, it was the only trace of civilization he'd found, and he couldn't afford to be picky. Besides, if he had to, he could fight his way out, even if it meant picking a sword and armor off someone's corpse.

He crested the incline he'd been walking up, crouching low as he looked out across the rocky tract below. He'd been right about the battle—pockets of soldiers faced off with swords, spears, and poles, while volleys of arrows arced through the air from both sides, striking the main body of each army. One group bore black banners inscribed with a crescent moon, and wore armor that blended in with the night, while the other side wore stark white uniforms patterned with what looked to be flames—ostentatious in the shadows, but at least it kept things orderly. Kurogane had seen the aftermath of battles where friendly fire had caused nearly as many casualties as the enemies had, so he could see the logic of the contrasting color schemes, even if white and red were impractical for stealth.

The army in black had secured a position at the top of the hill, allowing their archers a better position from which to shoot, as well as a place for them to set up command tents near the front line without putting their officers in serious peril. Based on his own experiences, he guessed any medical facilities would be somewhere near there.

Hauling the princess over his shoulder, he skirted along the edge of the valley where the battle raged, pausing when he found several dead soldiers. He grabbed one of their swords, feeling only a twinge of guilt, as well as a black cloak which would cover up the synthetic tracksuit he'd been wearing in the previous world.

A strange, floppy-eared creature built like a horse nickered as he stood up. Metallic blue in color, its body was covered in glittering scales, and a stubby horn protruded from its forehead. A sturdy animal, surprisingly well camouflaged among the sparkling crystals. It looked at him with blue-green eyes, then mournfully nudged one of the dead soldiers.

Kurogane sighed. "All right, you horse-thing, here's what's going to happen." He kept his voice level, knowing even well-trained horses would shy away if you spoke too harshly. "You're going to take me and this girl over to those tents. You're not going to complain, and you're not going to let us get hit by any of those arrows. Got it?"

The creature's ears flattened. It gave a discontented huff, then bowed its head, half-raising one of its front legs in an inviting gesture. Patting the odd animal on the side of the neck, Kurogane climbed into the saddle, pulling the girl up. Then, hoping riding practices here were at least someone similar to those in Nihon, he nudged the horse's sides with his heel. The creature sprang forward, almost throwing him off, then settled into a jarring canter. Which, considering the terrain, was probably the best he could hope for.

Unconcerned with stopping to fight, they moved through the ranks of black-clad soldiers, drawing puzzled glances from some. It took only a few minutes to reach the clusters of command tents, and which point he was intercepted by a black-haired man on a similar mount. "Halt! What is your purpose here?"

Something in the man's voice struck him as odd, though it took him a moment to figure out what: He had an accent. Not only that, but Kurogane could understand his words. Which meant the man was speaking _nihongo, _or at least a close variant of it, and the manjuu wasn't close enough to filter out the strange speech patterns. "I'm looking for the medical tents."

The man's eyebrows rose slightly. "Your accent—you're not from Yama. Who are you?"

_That must be what this country is called. _"Right now, I'm a civilian. And this girl is badly injured, so unless you want me to gut you with _this,_" he said, letting his hand close around the hilt of the sword he'd picked up, "I suggest you send us to the nearest healer."

The man—he had to be an officer, judging by the intricate knots on his shoulder—clucked his tongue in annoyance, gesturing to two lower-ranking soldiers. "Chan, Sao, escort this man to the healers' tents. He is not permitted to leave until I get a chance to speak with him."

"Yes, captain," the soldiers said in unison, mounting their horses and taking positions on either side of him. Gritting his teeth against the stream of complaints, Kurogane allowed them to guide him down the slope of the hill to a sequestered area dotted with a few dozen tents.

"Healer Yugata will see to the girl," one of the soldiers said. Kurogane dismounted, carrying the princess toward the tent, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. "You are not permitted within."

"Why the hell not?" he demanded, receiving a pair of baffled glances from the soldiers.

"Healer Yugata only tends to female patients," the younger-looking man said, a bit hesitantly. "Men are not allowed inside her tent."

"What kind of stupid rule is that?"

"_Rule_?" the older soldier said, sounding scandalized. "It is the will of the gods! Male healers tend to men, female healers to women. It is how things have always been done in Yama."

"What's all this noise?" a female voice asked. A woman in red robes poked her head out of the tent, her face wrinkled like an apple left out in the sun. "Have you a patient for me?"

"Here." Kurogane held the princess out to the woman, who sighed and gestured for a pair of younger women to place the princess in a stretcher.

"Get going then," the woman snapped. "I'll not have any men eavesdropping while I heal this girl. You can come back after moonset." As the apprentices carried Sakura through the tent opening, the older woman—Yugata, they'd called her—loosened the string attached to one flap to close it.

"You are injured as well," said the younger soldier.

Kurogane shrugged, the movement pulling at the scrapes on his back. "Hardly. I don't need any treatment."

"Stubborn _and _dense," said the older one, lip curled in disgust. Kurogane narrowed his eyes.

"Come on," said the younger soldier. "We'll take you to Al-Tiel. He's Kyrrin-born, but he's a good healer."

Fuming, but not in much of a position to argue, Kurogane followed, only pausing to cast one last glance at Healer Yugata's tent. _You'd better live, princess, _he thought. _You're going to owe me for sticking my neck out like this._

* * *

><p><em>Author's Notes:<em>

_Can I just say: I am _so _excited for this arc. I wasn't initially planning on rewriting the Shara/Shura/Yama arc, but as I was reading through the series again, it occurred to me that these worlds are magnificently beautiful, on top of having a unique time-travel element to them (which we'll get to later). It's a unique fantasy setting, both captivating and with enough implication of depth, that I thought it would be a good place to experiment with writing about different cultures. And since we didn't get to see much of Yama in the manga, I have the opportunity to play around with the world a bit._

_That said, I would like to clarify some things before we get too deep into this arc. As you may have noticed, there is a bit of a gender divide in this version of Yama, which I understand may be off-putting to some. I would like to say now that I am going to do my best not to suggest that any of the cultural norms here are necessarily the "right" way to handle things, nor are they necessarily "wrong." They are simply different from what most of us are used to, as they are a product of an unusual setting. Some characters will react to the culture clashes a bit harshly (as Kurogane does here), but others will acknowledge it as a fact of different upbringings/norms/societal expectations. Aside from the gender divide, there will be a few other unusual facets of the cultures portrayed here, and I will try to do my best in handling those tactfully (although certain characters may not always be tactful). _

_I dearly hope that you all enjoy reading this arc as much as I expect I will enjoy writing it. Naturally, though, if you think I am in any way mishandling the cultures presented here (i.e., not treating them with respect or otherwise writing something unintentionally offensive), please let me know, as that is the last thing I want to do. Know also that I do not intend to write them as direct analogues to any one country, so any similarities on that count were either implied by the manga or are coincidental. And thanks to everyone who continues to read and review: You guys are awesome._


	62. Truths

Chapter Sixty-Two

"It must have been a bad fall."

Kurogane grunted. The healer, a dark-skinned man named Al-Tiel, dabbed at his wounds with an antiseptic-soaked rag. Though his black eyes had lit with surprise at Kurogane's accent, he hadn't yet made any disparaging remarks about his ignorance of this world's cultures, which was an improvement over the pair of soldiers keeping watch on him.

"Hold still. This will only take a moment." Al-Tiel shifted behind him, his smooth fingertips running down the length of Kurogane's spine. Magic tingled in the wake of his touch, a cold, crawling sensation that was also somehow refreshing. The stinging pain of his scrapes faded to nonexistence. At the same time, a trace of fatigue worked its way through him, as if he'd slept only half the usual amount the previous night. "It is done," Al-Tiel said, standing up and picking up a cup of tea from a table nearby. "You may wish to rest for the remainder of the battle. There's not long left before moonset."

"He's no soldier," said one of his escorts. "Told Captain Meru he was a civilian."

"A civilian?" Al-Tiel's silvery eyebrows winged up. "Here?"

"That's what he said." Skepticism dripped from the words, and Kurogane shot his guards a hostile glance.

"I will admit, it is not uncommon to find foreigners in the army," Al-Tiel said, his voice light, "but it is very _unusual, _shall we say, for a noncombatant to come here."

"Unheard of, more like." The older soldier eyed him warily, but addressed the bald healer as he spoke. "His story strikes me as that of a spy. What reason would a civilian have to wander onto a battlefield?"

"Would you quit talking about me like I'm not here?" Kurogane growled. "I'm not a spy, and I'm not an idiot. I came here to find a healer for the pri—the girl." He closed his mouth, unwilling to say more. Bad enough they thought he was a spy. They didn't need to know they had what some might construe as a valuable hostage in their camp.

Outside the tent, bells began to ring. Al-Tiel sighed and stood. "The moon is setting. There will be an influx of wounded at any moment. I will need space." He ushered them outside, and Kurogane saw that he was right. As the main forces pulled back, they brought with them any injured who might yet survive, though curiously, they didn't bring back any prisoners from the other army. Did they not believe in taking prisoners, or had the battle turned sour while Al-Tiel had been healing him? _No, not enough casualties for that. If these people had lost the battle, there would be more wounded. _

"Come," said the younger of his escorts. "We'll take you back to Captain Meru."

"I need to see the girl I came with first."

"You will see her after."

He bristled. "I'll see her _now_, or the two of you will find out how dumb it is to piss me off."

The pair exchanged glances, and oddly, it was the younger soldier who made the decision. "Very well. But we must make haste. Captain Meru can be . . . strict."

The three of them walked back to Yugata's tent. Now that he'd gained his bearings, he could see the gender divide more clearly. Though most of the tents catered to male soldiers, as they were more abundant, a good deal of women arrived at the cluster of tents near Yugata's, bearing injuries of varying severity. Curiously, most of them wore armor similar to their male counterparts. Kurogane would have thought that the bizarre gender divide in this world would have been even more obvious in the battlefield than it had been here, among the healers' tents. In Nihon, women had primarily provided magical support to troops, creating shields or sending powerful spells toward the enemy, rather than attacking with swords or staffs. Female warriors weren't rare, exactly, but they served a markedly different role in combat, and seeing so many of them in regular armor, with swords hanging from their belts, was a little strange.

One of his escorts asked a woman with relatively minor wounds to look in on Yugata's tent. A moment later, the weathered old woman poked her head out of the tent. "Your girl is inside, resting."

Kurogane let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "So she's all right?"

"Aye. Though her wounds were most unusual. How did someone lodge such a small piece of metal so deeply into her body? And without creating a gaping wound in the process? It is very strange."

"Can I see her?"

"No." Yugata let the tent flap close. Before he could think, Kurogane reached out to open it, but a nearby woman grabbed his wrist before he could.

"What are you, a barbarian?" she demanded. "Men are not permitted in any tent where women are being tended to."

_Oh, for fuck's sake, _he thought, exasperated. He turned to the soldiers escorting him. "Fine, then. Take me to this captain of yours."

The soldiers looked relieved that he was finally going along with what they'd wanted to do in the first place. Shoulders squared, they led him up the incline, taking a winding path hewn from the rock. As they walked, Kurogane tried to absorb as much tactical information as possible. If things turned sour, he'd be badly outnumbered, but with the main battle over, few soldiers would be prepared for an attack, at least from within. There was still the matter of the other army. Whether they'd retreated or not, only a fool would let their guard down completely so soon after a battle.

Worse, if things went awry, he'd have to make his way back to the princess before he could escape, which was a complication he didn't need. And he couldn't very well leave her behind, without the mage or the boy or even the manjuu to watch over her in her fragile state. He had no illusions about the horrible things that could happen to a young girl surrounded military men, no matter how supposedly honest and well-disciplined they were.

They crested the hill, passing several carts carrying the dead and wounded. The dark-haired captain Kurogane had spoken to when he'd first arrived in the encampment stood amidst a flurry of activity, ordering his subordinates to take care of the post-battle necessities, such as tallying up the casualties and retrieving corpses for burial. When Kurogane approached, the man turned to him, the movement sharp, his eyes narrowed. "You took your time, civilian."

Kurogane said nothing. In the space of half an hour, he'd been chastised by half a dozen people about breaking social norms they apparently regarded as obvious. Considering the sensitivity of the situation, it was probably wise for him to keep his mouth shut.

"You wear a soldier's weapon," the captain went on, eyes flicking to the saber Kurogane had picked up. "And I can see that you have elected to borrow some of our armor. You are aware that impersonating a soldier is a capital offense, yes?"

He shrugged. "It was that or ride across the battlefield with no means of defending myself."

The man regarded him, black eyes keen. After a moment, he sighed. "I am Captain Meru of the thirty-second regiment of Lord Yasha-O's army. And you?"

"Kurogane of Suwa, elite guard to Princess Tomoyo of Nihon."

Captain Meru's eyes flickered. "I have not heard of this place, or of your princess." The implied request for elaboration hung in the air, answered only by silence. After a moment, Captain Meru raised his hand to a silver pin on the front of his uniform. "What is your purpose here?"

"I already told you, I needed a healer for that girl."

"What else?"

"That's the only reason. If you want me to go, I'll go, but the girl stays with me."

"And what is the identity of this girl?" When he hesitated, the man's eyes flashed. "Do not attempt to deceive me. I am a Truthseer. If you lie, I will know."

"She's the princess of her country," he said at last, hoping that was sufficiently vague.

Captain Meru frowned. "Of Shura?"

_Shura? _"That the country you're fighting against?"

Meru's frown deepened. "You arrive here with a badly wounded princess without any knowledge of the current political situation?"

His hackles rose. "Yeah, like I had any choice. Believe me, I don't give a damn about this war or anyone involved in it. All I want is to make sure the princess is safe and get back to the rest of my group so we can move on."

The captain studied him for a moment. "I apologize," he said, surprising Kurogane. "You have given me many truths, yet I am certain this must seem like an interrogation. As the guardian of a princess, you must know how easy it is for some to twist their words to be true but misleading."

He did know. He dealt with the mage every day, after all, and while the idiot sometimes lied outright, Kurogane suspected a good deal of what he said was nothing more than the truth twisted into a different shape.

Captain Meru continued to question him about his companions, his journey into the camp, his past. He readily answered questions about the first two—it would be a lot easier to find the others if more people were looking, and he had no reason to lie about how he'd come into camp. The Truthseer seemed puzzled by the method of his arrival, remarking that if not for his ability, he would think Kurogane lost in some fantasy. As for the questions about his past, he answered vaguely, not wanting to reveal too much of Tomoyo or of his own beginnings. Thankfully, Meru didn't seem interested in dredging up his childhood, instead asking about the details of his career as Tomoyo's protector.

"You are an interesting man, Kurogane of Suwa. I think, perhaps, that Lord Yasha-O would wish to meet you. However, I expect he will be occupied for some time. First he must handle the aftermath of the battle, and once that is attended to, he usually takes the rest of the evening to reflect on his own. In the meantime, you may stay in one of the auxiliary tents. Chan, Sao, if you would help our guest settle in. And keep him informed of his companion's condition. I am sure he will want to see her once she has recovered sufficiently.

"Yes, sir." The two soldiers who had been escorting Kurogane around stepped forward. More at ease now that it was clear he wouldn't be going up against a hostile complement of soldiers, he allowed them to lead him across the camp, to a row of red and black tents lined up with military neatness. Here and there, he saw clusters of women and children moving about, tending to the horse-creatures, cooking, sewing patches in uniforms, and performing other chores that made an army run more smoothly. All armies attracted camp followers, of course, but most of the time, one could expect brothels and other somewhat disreputable services to make up the bulk of such groups. These people acted more like families, maybe even the wives and children of the soldiers living in the camp itself.

"We will keep you appraised of your companion's condition," said the younger soldier as they reached an unoccupied tent near the end of the row. "Please remain here—someone will come by to ensure you have everything you need."

He stepped across the threshold, noting the sparse furnishings within. Two cots took up the bulk of the space, and there was a curtained-off area which concealed a washtub and a chamber pot. Better accommodations than he'd expected. He sat on the edge of one bed, removing his boots and wishing he'd been wearing his armor when they'd been forced to jump between worlds. For once, the dark carapace would have helped him blend in. Of course, the princess would have still been wearing the tracksuit from the last world, and if the others had been wearing their original clothes, they'd have been a beacon of bright colors on the moonlit battlefield.

_Where are they? _he wondered, not for the first time. His trip through the dimensional sea had been tumultuous, their escape hasty and perilous, but even so, he'd expected the others to land nearby, like always. The fact that they hadn't made his gut twist. But he had to acknowledge the possibility that they hadn't survived, that they'd been torn apart by the conflicting spells or dumped into someplace even more dangerous than he had. For all he knew, they'd fallen into the middle of the battle and gotten themselves trampled to death.

He grit his teeth. The princess, at least, was alive and being cared for. The fates of everyone else might be out of his control, but he had that much, and if he had to, he'd kill to defend the girl, Tomoyo's curse be damned.


	63. Strange Places

_Author's Notes:_

_Hello, everyone! Glad to have you all here for this (somewhat overdue) update. Sorry for the delay. Now that I'm in the revision stage of my original piece, I find it difficult to get back into the creation phase of the writing process, hence the lack of chapters lately. _

_But that is not why I'm writing this author's note. The reason I'm writing this is because one of you noticed an error in the last chapter regarding Yasha-O's title. It turns out that the suffix "O" translates roughly to "king," and, in the manga, is used as an honorific for gods and heroes, which means that calling him "Lord Yasha-O" as I have been is rather redundant (sort of like calling a person Lord King Yasha). However, despite it's redundancy, I prefer the sound and cadence of "Lord Yasha-O," and I figured since Yama and Shura have a lot of fantasy elements, it wouldn't be too unrealistic to modify the naming conventions a bit. One of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, has a habit of doing something similar, where the title for the ruler of a country is actually made up of two titles (some examples being the Lord Ruler from the _Mistborn Trilogy _and the God King from _Warbreaker_). So, although the term "Lord Yasha-O" is technically incorrect, I've decided to keep it as is and incorporate it as a world element. Hopefully this is not too bothersome, but if anyone has strong feelings one way or the other, please let me know so that I can make better decisions in future chapters._

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><p>Chapter Sixty-Three<p>

Voices ricocheted all around her, a staccato _tap-tap-tap _of syllables underscored by shuffling feet and scraping sounds. Blearily, Sakura opened her eyes, head lolling to the side as she tried to focus on the hazy figures nearby. At her movement, the rhythmic voices faltered, only to be replaced by the sharp command of an older woman in red robes. A few darker stains marred the fabric, dried and brownish with age. As Sakura focused, the woman uttered a string of words, watching her intently. "What?"

The woman frowned, the wrinkles around her mouth drawing tighter. She repeated the same words, enunciating them now, but Sakura could only shake her head. _Why isn't Mokona translating? Where am I? _

When she didn't respond, the woman spoke to several younger women in darker robes. The trio quickly set about checking her pulse and listening to her breathing. As they did, they chattered back and forth in the same disjointed language while the oldest woman—the leader, she thought—made inquiries. Eventually, she sent one of her apprentices out of the tent, then came over to rest a hand on Sakura's shoulder. She spoke clearly, once again enunciating each syllable, but Sakura could find no meaning in her words. "I don't understand," she said apologetically, hoping her tone would convey what her words couldn't.

The woman sighed, then cupped Sakura's shoulder, easing her into a sitting position. To her surprise, the movement didn't hurt at all, despite her injuries. _Shougo shot me, _she thought, pressing her hand to her abdomen. She expected to feel a carpet of bandages, but instead her fingers found only unmarked skin beneath the cotton gown someone had dressed her in. _I've been completely healed, _she thought, amazed. She'd learned a bit of healing magic from Yukito, but even so, she couldn't have healed such a dire wound even under ideal circumstances.

The old woman tapped her shoulder, drawing her attention. She pressed her fingertips to her chest. "Yugata," she said firmly before pressing her hand to Sakura's collarbone.

"Sakura," she replied, a bit hesitantly.

"Sakura." Yugata smiled, patting her shoulder and gesturing for her to stand. She did, once again surprised by how complete her recovery had been. How long had she been unconscious? She felt tired, but it was the kind of exhaustion that came with a lot of physical exertion, rather than a few sleepless nights. Healing magic was taxing on those it touched. While some of the required energy came from the magic itself, the rest came from the person being healed, and such a grievous wound would have sapped her body's resources.

The arm she'd broken during the race had been tended to as well. The cast had been removed, and no pain lingered, which suggested that Yugata had healed it just as she'd healed the wound in her abdomen. Her head no longer ached, and even the bruises on her hands and knees had been tended to. She was in better condition than she'd been in since . . . well, since the night she'd left Clow.

The apprentice Yugata had sent away returned then, poking her head into the tent and rattling off a string of words Sakura couldn't possibly hope to follow. Yugata nodded, procuring a pair of sandals from a chest near Sakura's cot and handing them to her. She put them on, allowing Yugata to guide her outside.

The sight that greeted her was simultaneously magnificent and alien. The ground was a striking deep purple with veins of white, blue, and green streaking through the crystal, and the sky was nearly as astonishing, a tapestry of stars that twinkled bright enough to bathe the land in twilight, though the sun hadn't yet risen. As far as she could tell, there was no vegetation—the rugged terrain would make it difficult for plants to grow—but here and there she could see what appeared to be onion-shaped rocks clustered around columns of crystal. Despite the early (late?) hour, the area bustled with people pushing carts of produce and other goods, as well as other healers and strange horse-like creatures with scales that glittered like the ground underfoot.

A commotion down the road drew her eye, and she turned to see Kurogane striding in her direction, escorted by a pair of men with black and red armor. Relief flooded her at the sight of a familiar face, and she shuffled toward him, glad that Yugata had given her a pair of sandals so the rough ground wouldn't scrape up her feet. "Kurogane-san," she called as she reached him. "What is this place? Where are the others?"

A strange expression slid across the ninja's face. He muttered something incomprehensible, and only then did it dawn on her that he was no more likely to understand her than she was to understand the people of this world. _Where is Mokona? _she wondered again, distress bubbling up in her chest.

Kurogane turned to Yugata, speaking to her as if he expected to be understood. To Sakura's surprise, Yugata answered at length, and the two of them held a brief conversation. _How can he understand everyone else, but not me? And why can't _I _understand anyone? _

Could it be that Kurogane's world shared a language with the people of this world? It was strange to contemplate. Back in Clow, Syaoran had often gone on tangents about the etymology of words, and she knew that the development of a language could be very complex. Many languages had a variety of dialects which sometimes branched off to the point where it was difficult even for two speakers of the same language to understand one another. That they had landed in a world in which Kurogane could communicate so easily seemed odd, and yet . . . in a way, it made sense. Just as there could be identical versions of the same person, perhaps there could be identical languages across various worlds, parallels which tied the dimensions together in subtle but unbreakable ways.

After a few minutes, Kurogane and Yugata came to some sort of agreement. The ninja nudged Sakura's elbow and jerked his chin toward the road, seeming to expect her to follow. She did, pausing only to bow her head to Yugata before hurrying down the path after him.

* * *

><p><em>This is going to be frustrating as hell<em>, Kurogane thought as they made their way down one of the main thoroughfares. The princess gawked at the supply carts, at the horse-creatures, at the sky, at the ground, at the tents. It wasn't like he didn't understand how bizarre this world was—he'd been here two days already, waiting for her to wake up, and he still stomped all over the local etiquette at every turn. Not that he'd ever paid much mind to politeness, but it was annoying to go through his day not knowing when someone would chastise him for doing something he thought was innocuous but which was evidently taboo in this damned place. At least whenever he'd offended someone in Nihon, he'd known he was being rude.

Fortunately, he'd thought ahead and asked that old woman what to do with the princess now that she'd recovered. The healer had informed him that, given the unusual circumstances of their arrival—a story which had been perpetuated to the point where everyone in camp seemed to know he was an outsider—it was permissible for him to keep the girl with him while more appropriate accommodations could be arranged. The woman had also told him she'd send someone over to get Sakura started with the language, though the healer had seemed puzzled by the fact that _he _spoke the language perfectly while the girl seemed to have no knowledge of it. When Kurogane had told her he didn't understand the princess's language either, Yugata had simply raised an eyebrow and muttered something about a lily in a rockbud garden, whatever the hell that meant.

At last, they reached the tent he'd been staying in. Chan and Sao, the soldiers who'd been assigned to keep watch on him the first day, stood outside, on the edge of the road. Sao, the younger of the two, waved as Kurogane approached, then smiled as he saw Sakura. "It is good to see you alive and well," he said to her.

Sakura hesitated, then returned his smile, bowing her head and murmuring a greeting of some sort.

Sao blinked, glancing at Kurogane. "Does she not speak the language?"

"No. It's complicated," he added when the soldier opened his mouth to reply.

"All right. The girl is healthy and aware of her surroundings," Chan said, casting a sour look at both of them. "It is time for you to meet Lord Yasha-O."

"Fine," he said, "but the girl stays with me."

Annoyance glinted in Chan's eyes, but he had no real reason to refuse the request. He loped off, his gait made uneven by a slight limp. Kurogane had managed to stall while the princess recovered, but Captain Meru had already visited twice since their first conversation, asking when he would be available to meet with this Yasha-O person, and there was little else he could do to delay it.

"Don't worry," Sao said. "Lord Yasha-O is intimidating, but he's good to his troops."

It seemed unwise to point out that neither of them were actually part of Yasha-O's troops, and thus had no reason to believe they would be treated well rather than kept as political hostages. Not that Yasha-O had any way of contacting their home worlds, but even Kurogane could admit that their story was damned difficult to believe. It was enough to make him wish the mage were around, or the boy. They both seemed adept at talking their way out of complicated situations.

Chan returned, riding one of those horse-creatures. "Yasha-O has agreed to see you at fourth bell. You will be expected to wear your finery and arrive half an hour before your designated meeting time." The old soldier paused, regarding them dubiously. "I take it neither of you has anything that could be considered appropriate attire?"

Sao looked at him, frowning. "I bet I can convince Gazan and Suyin to lend them something for the day. If these two don't mind wearing borrowed clothes."

Kurogane shrugged. A man had come by the first day with two sets of clothes for him, and except for his boots, which he'd been wearing in Avantine, his entire outfit was comprised of unfamiliar garments.

Sao departed, leaving Chan to guard their tent. They weren't prisoners, exactly, but despite Captain Meru's assurances, they were not yet trusted, hence the continued presence of their guards. Kurogane tried not to let it bother him—he'd performed similar assignments for Tomoyo's sake—but it still chafed.

"C'mon," he said to the princess, pushing open the tent flap. She trailed after him, glancing over her shoulder. As the flap closed behind them, her smile fell away, replaced by anxiety. Her eyes, a deep green in the shadowed tent, fell on him, glittering with an unspoken question. "I don't know where they are," he said with a shrug. "Not here."

She must have heard the twinge of regret in his voice because she simply nodded and sat on the unused cot, shoulders slumped, hands pressed to her face as she hung her head. He'd seen her distressed, uncertain, even afraid, but this was the first time he'd ever seen her look so defeated. It bothered him more than he'd expected it to, and he found himself reaching out to ruffle her hair. "We'll figure something out," he said, knowing she couldn't understand him but hoping she'd get the gist of it. "They're probably just out of range. We'll find them."

Sakura raised her head, misery swimming in her eyes. Then, without a word, she drew her knees up against her chest and closed her eyes.


	64. Floating Castles

_Author's Notes:_

_And in this chapter, we introduce more OCs! No, really though, sorry about that. I know a lot of people dislike OCs, particularly when they intrude on the plot, but I couldn't find many canon characters who really _fit _in Yama, so we ended up with a lot of OCs instead. They'll all have some varying importance over the course of this arc, so hopefully they're engaging enough in their own right. Do let me know what you think of them, though._

* * *

><p>Chapter Sixty-Four<p>

An hour before their appointment with Lord Yasha-O, a couple arrived at their tent, each bearing an armful of fine clothes. "This is Gazan," said Sao, gesturing to the broad-shouldered man on the left. "And that's Suyin. They're married."

Suyin bowed her head. "It's nice to meet you. Sao mentioned you'd need something to wear to your meeting with Lord Yasha-O."

"Yeah," Kurogane said, distracted. Suyin had a willowy build, but the faint bulge of her abdomen revealed a budding pregnancy. Which wouldn't have been all that weird, except that she wore the black garb he'd come to associate with off-duty soldiers.

The man, Gazan, followed his gaze, then grinned. "The oracle says she's having twins. It'll be a few months yet before she pops, though."

Suyin swatted the back of Gazan's head. "Careful, darling. You know what happens to people who count their rockbuds before they bloom!" Her eyes, a glittering black, fell to Sakura as she held out a bundle of fabric. "These are some of my clothes from before I joined the army. I'm a bit too . . . shall we say, _plump_, to wear them now, so you can hold onto them while you stay with us."

The princess took the bundle uncertainly, bowing her head and murmuring something in her native language. _I'm probably going to have to start teaching her, _Kurogane thought. Healer Yugata had promised to send someone to help the girl with the language, but it would take more than a few lessons for her to be able to communicate effectively.

"And these are for you," Gazan said, pressing a similar bundle of finery into Kurogane's arms. "I threw in a couple old shirts, too. Heard you didn't have much on you when you first got here."

"Thanks." The word sounded stilted in his voice—he wasn't accustomed to needing help—but he meant it. As much as he resented this world for obstructing his mission to get back to Tomoyo, the people here reminded him of the men and women who had worked on his family's estate, back in Suwa.

"We'll leave you alone to get ready," Suyin said, "but have Sao let us know if you need anything. The next battle's not for another few weeks, so there will be plenty of time to settle in."

Her statement puzzled him—how could she be so sure about when the next battle would be? But before he could ask, she and Gazan swept out of the room, and Sao, who'd been standing in the doorway with a faint smile on his face, followed them out, chatting amiably.

Kurogane separated the borrowed finery from the more casual clothes, then went behind the privacy curtain to change. The outfit, similar in style to several garments he'd been made to wear in Tomoyo's service, went on easily, and he emerged a few minutes later, gesturing for the princess to take her turn. Now that there weren't any strangers looking in, her expression had shifted from neutral to anxious again, and as she walked behind the curtain, she kneaded the clothing with her fingertips, her muscles stiff.

He wondered if she thought the kid and the mage were dead. If she did, he didn't know how to correct her, and if she didn't . . . Well, there was a possibility they _were _dead. They had no way of knowing unless they came across them again. _And if they _are _dead, we might have trouble getting out of this world, _he thought. The pork bun must have landed with those two, since she hadn't shown up around here, but even with all the weird magical stuff that happened around her, Kurogane didn't think the meat bun was all that durable. It wouldn't surprise him if the creature got trampled under the hooves of those shiny horse-things. Which, considering that she was their only means of jumping between worlds, was actually a much more upsetting notion than Kurogane would have thought.

Not that he missed them. Of course not. It wasn't like they were _friends _or anything.

The princess emerged then, wearing a white and black gown with a floral pattern. She'd even gotten all the knots tied correctly, which saved them both a lot of awkwardness. Though maybe it shouldn't have surprised him that a princess would be accustomed to wearing all kinds of restrictive finery.

"C'mon," he said, stepping outside. The girl followed without question.

"Ready to go?" asked Chan.

"Yeah."

The grizzled soldier nodded, then whistled. A trio of those horse-creatures trotted over, their iridescent eyes flickering between green, gold, and blue as they greeted their riders. They seemed more clever than the horses Kurogane had ridden, and more affectionate, though they were obviously bred for battle. After a moment, Chan muttered something about fetching more mounts, while Sao patted his cobalt stallion's neck.

Once they'd acquired enough mounts to carry all four of them, they set off at a trot, heading toward the western edge of the camp. As the rows of tents became less crowded, Kurogane began to catch glimpses of a row of floating stone platforms. Vegetation grew on the bottoms of these platforms, as if the underside of the stone was more fertile than the rock underfoot. Yet another oddity in this strange world.

He thought they were going to bypass the bizarre platforms, but Chan and Sao led him straight toward a row of them. Kurogane tensed, certain their mounts would balk at the jump, but then he saw the horse-creatures ahead launch themselves into the air, leaping several body lengths high and landing lightly on the flat floating stones before bouncing up to a higher platform nearby. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the reins, stomach swooping as his own mount, obviously accustomed to such things, leapt up the platforms with ease.

Startled by the agility of their mounts, it took him several moments to realize that the floating rocks formed a spiral of hovering steps leading almost straight up. He craned his neck, trying to see what hovered above, but he couldn't get a good look before he was forced to devote his attention once again to the stomach-churning jumps. _It__ was bad enough trying to ride on bumpy ground with these things, _he thought. _Damn this world and whatever magic holds it together._

They made their way up and up, stopping only briefly when they reached a chunk of crystal large enough to support all four of them. "Exciting, huh?" Sao asked.

He gave the younger soldier an irritated glance. "You might have mentioned the terrain was going to be like this."

Sao frowned. "Well, yeah. How else do you expect to get to the castle?"

The mix of nausea and annoyance meant it took him a moment to process the soldier's meaning. "Wait. You're saying the castle is in the goddamn _sky_?"

Chan and Sao exchanged baffled looks. "We assumed you knew. Lord Yasha-O's floating castle is Yama's most famous landmark."

"I keep telling you, he's dense," Chan said. Kurogane thought about strangling him, then decided he was too damn dizzy to bother. He glanced over at the princess, expecting her to look as miserable as he felt, but she was staring up above, her expression alight with curiosity.

A few minutes later, they continued their ascent, much to Kurogane's displeasure. Thankfully, the horse-creature he'd picked out didn't seem to need much input, and as they neared the end, Kurogane got his first sight of the castle. It looked like a massive inverted geode, with long spires of crystal sticking outward from the core, glittering in the moonlight. Their path ended not at the base of the castle, but up toward the middle of it, where a section of the massive crystal had been hollowed out to admit visitors. He had to admit he was impressed. Putting your castle in the sky was a brilliant tactical decision, as anyone who wanted to invade would first have to climb the floating platforms, most of which were too small to allow more than one or two of these horse-creatures on at once. That meant that any army which tried to get into the castle would be forced to break their defensive lines to their bare minimum, making them easy targets for the archers at the gates. And with only one entrance, the number of guards needed to keep the palace safe would be minimized, making it as efficient as it was safe.

Sao and Chan spoke briefly to the gatekeepers, who then led their mounts to a small stable set up near the castle doors. "This is where we leave you," Sao said. "The castle guards will see you in."

Maybe it was the apologetic note in his voice, or maybe it was the fact that Sao's name was kind of similar, but in that moment he reminded Kurogane of the kid, and a fleeting thought about how he might be faring—weakened, worried, and lacking most of his memories—flashed through his mind. He _didn't _miss the others, really he didn't, but . . . but he'd kind of gotten used to thinking about what they were up to. He thought about them out of habit, not sentimentality. He certainly didn't care about them enough to actually be worried. And yeah, maybe he worried about the princess a little, but what kind of bastard _wouldn't _worry about a teenage girl in a war-camp with no understanding of the local language or customs?

The guards led the two of them inside. Though the interior of the palace was a far-cry from the craggy landscape below, it didn't strike him as opulent so much as stately. The walls were bare except for the patterns in the veins of crystal, and though a few statues and plants lined the wider corridors, they weren't ostentatious. If not for the high ceilings and wide hallways, it would have felt more like an administrative building than a palace.

"Lord Yasha-O will summon you when he is ready," one of the guards informed him as they reached a sitting room. "Please make yourselves comfortable until then."

Lacking much else to do, Kurogane walked over to the corner of the room, where he could watch all the entrances and exits. The princess stood near the opposite wall, ignoring the plush chairs, surveying the room with wary eyes. Eyes which seemed a few shades darker than they'd been a few days ago. _Is it the lighting? _he wondered, frowning. It seemed a subtle enough change. Maybe it was the fact that her borrowed clothes were darker than the pastels she usually wore. Tomoyo had told him once that wearing certain colors could make the eyes look different.

The minutes slipped by. He settled automatically into the watchful meditation he'd used when guarding Tomoyo. Now and then the princess shuffled or circled the room, but for the most part, she kept to her chosen position, never quite relaxing. Finally, a man in soldier's garb entered, beckoning them. "Yasha-O will speak with you now."

"Right. C'mon princess," he said, gesturing for her to follow. The soldier led them through several austere passages, each more sparsely decorated than the last, until they came to a pair of black stone doors chiseled with an image of the sun and moon set in a whirlpool of rippling lines.

"You will be expected to kneel when you enter and stand when Lord Yasha-O greets you," the soldier explained. "I recommend you avoid taking any actions which may be construed as threatening His Grace or any of his servants."

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before. Are we going in or not?"

The man winced but nodded, rapping his knuckles gently on the imposing doors. They opened with barely a scrape, revealing a room with black walls streaked with veins of minerals, like wisps of starlight turned to stone. At the center of it all, a man with black eyes and hair sat in a throne made from glittering crystal, his expression as cold and unyielding as the foundation of his castle.


End file.
